


Whole Weekend Recovery

by zzegnas



Series: Misadventures of Decuyper House [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 04:41:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zzegnas/pseuds/zzegnas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Thanks for taking care of me today,” Harry turns his head to face Niall.  “I’ll pay you back one of these days.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Niall stands up, and cleans off the grass from his clothes.  “You don’t have to,” holding his hands out to bring Harry to his feet, “I take care of everyone.”</em>
</p><p>–<br/>Harry transfers to a new school and adjusts to university life with an eclectic group of roommates.  There's Niall - the smartest student in school, Zayn - the hyperkinetic no one takes seriously, and the slightly mysterious Liam and Louis - attached to the hip and forever evading Harry's suspicions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whole Weekend Recovery

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Any](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cmdf) and [Caitlin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/la_faerie/pseuds/la_faerie) for reading this over and helping me tidy this up!
> 
> I technically wanted this to be a [Real Genius](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUKi0h5ZwPg) AU, but then it decided to turn around and become something completely different, although random moments from the film are lightly sprinkled throughout.
> 
>  **Sidenote** : This is Americanized to make the university stuff work; and I know I tagged Liam/Louis, but they mostly make chic cameos since this is strictly Harry/Niall etc.
> 
> Shout outs to Lola and the marrieds for enduring my H/N fangirling (it will never end).
> 
> Title from [Friday Night](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4KzyRttAts) by The Darkness.
> 
> (I take full responsibility for any remaining mistakes and inaccurate depictions of university life)

Harry sits quietly in the office of his academic advisor: it’s a cramped room, bookshelves full of manila folders, and loose paperwork hide picture frames of school achievements.  Harry leans over his chair to look out of the window, spotting a handful of students already walking around campus. His advisor looks over his transcripts, tapping away on his keyboard, determining how many credits he’ll be able to transfer and what classes he will need to take for the Fall semester.

Harry first went to a design school in Northern California, taking it as an opportunity to move away from home for a while and explore a new part of his home state.  The education he got there was hands-on, and he learned a lot more material quicker than he’d ever imagined.  Unfortunately, the scholarships and grants weren’t enough to keep him there, and he was forced to make the decision of attending a school back home.

It’s not that this particular university was terrible, in fact, Harry planned to enroll here if the school up North rejected him.  It’s closer to home, and he wouldn’t spend so much money on gas since the day he left two years ago.  He’ll live in the dorms and visit his parents if he had enough time.  It’s not a bad deal for either of them, if only he could have brought the cool Northern California weather with him.

Harry taps at the arm of the chair out of boredom, staring at his outstretched feet when he notices a figure in the corner of his eye standing by the slightly open door.  He looks up and the figure disappears, but not without leaving a loud thud and the echo of “Fucking shit!” in the hallway.  His advisor stands up to take a peek outside, finding no one around before he shrugs and walks back to his seat.  Harry covers his face with his shirt to yawn and he jumps in his seat, startled by the loud chimes of his advisor’s computer.  Soon after, the printer behind him loudly hums, pushing out several pieces of paper onto its weak plastic tray.

“Okay, Harry!  Everything is set,” his advisor says, rolling backwards towards the printer and slides the papers in front of Harry.  “Here is your schedule, parking permit, and housing information.  There was a slight change for your dormitory, so you’ll want to go ahead and check with the housing authorities for your access card.  Now, is there anything else I can do for you?”

Harry grabs the papers and quickly glances over it, lightly folding it in half. “I think I’ll be okay for now.”

“All right then, let me know if you need anything else.”  The advisor stands up, then holds his hand out.  “Welcome aboard to Decuyper University!”  Harry smiles and shakes his hand, slinging his backpack over his shoulder when he leaves the office.

Harry walks through the administrative building, easily finding the housing office two doors away from his advisor.  He approaches the receptionist, handing her his information.  A mousy kind of girl, she simply smiles and holds up a finger, running across the room to gather his items.

Her indistinct whispers were loud, and Harry furrows his eyebrows when three other women wheeled their seats back from their cubicles, giving him a once over and whispering amongst each other again.  The mousy receptionist comes back with more papers, handing Harry his access card, and a map of the school.

“What were you telling them?  Those women, I mean,” Harry asks.

“We just realized you’re in Decuyper House, that’s all.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Oh, absolutely not!  It’s just that Niall, the head of the house, doesn’t normally pick new students to live there; he’s had the same three roommates for the past two years.”

“Have I been chosen to be in a fraternity?” Harry tightly grips his card, “I don’t do that.”

“No, it’s not a fraternity,” she laughs.  “Well, I guess it’ll feel like one once you get to know these guys.  Like a ‘gang mentality’, maybe.”

“Right,” Harry nods, stuffing his papers into his bag.  “Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome!  Oh, welcome to the school, by the way!”

Harry gives the receptionist a wave when he leaves the office, and heads towards the parking lot when he leaves the administrative building.  He gets to his car within five minutes, a dirty black sedan his mom bought for him when he passed his driving test three years ago.  Harry had only visited the campus for short periods of time in the last two weeks, since the school was two hours away from home, and didn’t stay long enough to explore the school for himself.

Opening up the trunk of his car, Harry drops his backpack over his two large duffel bags.  He slings the two bags over each shoulder and nearly topples from their combined weight.  “Jesus, it’s like I packed a dead body in here,” he says to himself.  He straightens up and grabs his laptop hiding under a mess of old papers, and places it in his backpack.  He takes out the map of the school and opens it, flattening the paper when he shuts the trunk.

Harry gives the map’s legend a quick glance, mostly looking for the location of the dormitories.  His old design school was a pretty modest size with three buildings and a cafeteria, but this place was practically its own city.  He puts a finger on the illustration of the adminstration building, placed on the lower left hand corner of the map, then trails his finger upwards, and spots the area where he will be staying.  He folds up the map, fanning off his slight sweat with it, and confidently walks through the parking lot.

It was going to take Harry a while to get used to this place, and he hopes the anxiety didn’t show on his face.  He reaches the school courtyard where a couple of students that passed by gave him a strange look, and Harry suddenly felt uncomfortable, wanting to run back to his car and drive back home.  But he takes a deep breath traipses on, passing through the large buildings that he assumes he will be taking his classes.  Harry could hardly believe his eyes at the mile-long hallways, stopping to take a breather every few steps, no thanks to the weight of his bags.

He takes out his map again when he finds three gray and gloomy buildings that looked more like old hospital residences.  The map’s illustration has it labeled as the dormitories, and he slowly walks past each building, finding each plaque on the front doors having different names than the one he was looking for: Hugo Hall, MacDiarmid Hall, and Whitforde Hall.

_Well that’s just great.  None of these say ‘Decuyper House’, where the hell am I going to sleep?_

No one seems to be around to help him, and Harry nearly gives up when he reaches the end of Whitforde Hall.  Frustrated, he rests against a nearby bench under a large tree when he notices a smaller building out of the corner of his eye.  He leans over the bench to get a better look, and realizes it looks more like a two-story home.

Walking towards the house, Harry takes note of its white, pristine appearance with marble railings that lined the front porch–a stark contrast of color and appearance compared to the dreary buildings next door.  When he gets closer, he finds a concrete staircase leading to the front doors, and a small white sign painted with black letters nailed to the lawn:

**Decuyper House: former residence of founder Rafael Decuyper**

Harry looks at his papers again and breathes a sigh of relief when he realizes this is his new home, and walks up the staircase.  Reaching the top of the first half of the stairs, he slowly walks the plateau before he stops in his tracks, realizing someone is staring at him from the marble railings.  Unable to make out the person’s face, Harry looks around for other people before that same person runs down the steps, stopping right in front of him.

“Hi!  Are you the new guy?”

Harry surveys the person in front of him–his large eyes and equally long eyelashes stood out alongside his angular cheekbones–noticing he was rather fidgety waiting for an answer.

“Uh, um... Yes?” Harry replies confused.

“Cool, I’m Zayn!” he exclaims, holding out his hand.

“I’m Harry,” he shakes Zayn’s hand, “Harry Styles.”

“Welcome, man!  You’re gonna love it here,” Zayn says with a big grin. “Have you been given a campus tour yet?”

“Not yet, I was hoping to go by myself later.”

“I’ll show you around, let’s put your stuff inside first.”  Zayn offers to take one of Harry’s bags, and nearly falls over when he lifts one of them.  “Jesus, what do you have in here, a dead body?” he asks, swiping his access card, and drags the bag across the floor.

Harry steps inside, and Zayn prompts him to leave his things by the door, giving his shoulders a chance to relax from the heavy weight of so many clothes.  Zayn leads him to the living room, and Harry’s entranced by the grand, open space.  Three large black sofas sit side by side around a coffee table, and a large flat screen television hangs above the fireplace.  The wall adjacent houses four video game cabinets, each playing their respective video introductions.

“I don’t believe it!” Harry says in amazement, running up to the cabinets.  “ _Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3_ , _Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo_ , _Pac-Man_ , and _Galaga_!?  How did you even get these in here?”

“Pretty cool, huh?  Niall managed to get all of these for free, said it was ‘on the grounds of information technology’,” Zayn snorts.  “Oh yeah, you’re sharing a room with Niall, by the way.”

Harry looks around the room asking, “Is he here?”

“He should be on campus somewhere, I can’t remember,” Zayn takes out his phone, looking through his texts.  “Yup, he was with housing authorities a while ago.”

 _Weird, I was just there,_ Harry thinks.  “Is he cool?”

“Yeah, he’s cool!  You guys will get along great, considering he did pick you to live here.”

Harry tilts his head in confusion. “I was told about that,” he recalls, “it’s only been four of you here this entire time?”

“Pretty much,” Zayn says with a shrug, “I mean, we’ve been looking for another roommate for a while, but a lot of the people who beg to be in here aren’t exactly...people we want to be seen with.  It’s not a good look for us.”

“And Niall thinks I’m a good look?” Harry asks in surprise.

“I asked the same question when he picked me too, don’t worry,” Zayn reassures him with a laugh.  “Come on, let’s get you a proper tour of the school.”

"Is this some sort of illuminati club house?" Harry jokingly asks.

"Don't be stupid, Harry," Zayn says seriously.  "We're actually Satanists and we play a round of _Street Fighter_ every night to appease The Mighty One."

Harry laughs when Zayn playfully bows before the video game cabinets.  Zayn escorts him towards the front door, and the two spend close to a half hour exploring the massive school.  Harry vaguely remembers his schedule, and Zayn shows him the buildings in which they would be located.  They seem pretty easy to memorize, all Harry needs are a couple of landmarks to remember where to go.  Zayn brings the tour to an end when they reach the school cafeteria.

“Are you hungry?” Zayn asks, and Harry shakes his head in response.  “One of our roommates works in the cafeteria, I’ll introduce you.”

Zayn leads Harry to a room was that sparsely filled with students eating sandwiches and remnants of what looked to be gourmet meals.  He follows Zayn around a maze of tables before they reach the start of the food line, and a young man in a white apron and red t-shirt with rolled up sleeves is standing behind it.

“Louis!  How are the beans, man!” Zayn shouts, bouncing on his tip toes.

“Shitty, as usual,” Louis replies, mindlessly tapping his metal spatula against a silver pot.

“Did you check your messages from Niall?” Zayn asks quietly, looking over his shoulder in Harry’s direction.

Harry peeks over Zayn’s shoulder, giving Louis a curious stare.  “Um, yeah?” Louis says confused.  “He said something about finding the new guy?”

“He’s right here!” Zayn grabs Harry from behind, and pushes him towards the glass counter.

“Oh my god, why did you bring him here now!” Louis squeals, attempting to hide his face behind the spatula.  “This is so unprecedented, Zayn!”

“Chill out, man,” Zayn waves him off.  “Anyway!  Harry, Louis.  Louis, Harry.  He’s our new roommate.”

Louis puts down the spatula and removes his glove, reaching over to shake Harry’s hand.  “Don’t let this hair net fool you, I’m a lot better looking without it,” he says, adjusting the gaudy blue shower cap over his head.  Harry and Zayn snicker loudly and Louis glares at them, threatening them with his spatula.

“I’m guessing you’ve met Liam already?” Louis asks Harry.

“Liam?  I don’t think I–”

“He’s another one of our roommates,” Zayn adds, “you’ll get to meet him later.”

Harry’s phone goes off, looking at the reminder alert flashing across the screen.  “Sorry guys, I actually have to get back to my car.  Need to pick some things up for my room, I’ll see you later!” he waves at his two roommates when he turns, and Zayn stops him.

“Hey, can I sketch your hair?” Zayn asks earnestly, and Harry gives him a blank stare. “It’s okay, you can answer me later.”

He shrugs off Zayn’s question, and makes the trek back to his car.  His roommates are a lot nicer than he’d expected, and the day is starting to look good so far.  He's just glad they're already accepting him this quickly.  Harry’s run out of breath by the time he reaches the parking lot ( _Twelve minutes, are you joking?_ ), and realizes he may need to do some more searching to find a parking spot closer to the house.

Harry’s fumbling for his keys when he hears someone yelling in the field across the parking lot.  The voice sounds vaguely familiar, and he looks up, realizing it’s coming from a student with blond hair and a dark purple hoodie.  The student playfully runs around another boy wearing a red and white raglan shirt, chasing after a soccer ball, and his smile is wider than anything Harry has ever seen before.

Harry lingers in his spot for a while, fascinated by the blond’s cackle that echoed across the way, until a car alarm goes off nearby.  “Duvet, toothpaste, bananas,” he mumbles to himself when he gets inside of his car, and takes out his cellphone to call his mom.  She answers after the first ring, and he lets her know he made it safely to the school and met most of his roommates already.

“I am just saying there is nothing wrong with you living at home if you don’t like it there.”

“Mom, _not again_ ,” Harry complains.  “I’m a big boy now.  I’ll be okay, I promise.”

“I know you are, babe,” she sighs, “but you let me know if you need anything.”

Harry starts the car when he hangs up, and as he’s exiting the lot, he spots the blond student in his rear view mirror, walking and looking at his phone at the same time.  Harry looks away, focusing back on the road when he makes a left turn, and doesn’t think about him the rest of the day.

–

Harry comes back from his trip to the store two hours later, having bought a few extra things that he technically didn’t need, like extra notebooks, new shirts, and bags of candy.  After several minutes of driving around campus, Harry manages to find a parking lot closer to Decuyper House.  Getting out of his car, he grabs his items and heads towards the front door, waving at Zayn when he sees him sitting on the marble railing again.

“I brought your stuff up to your room, by the way,” Zayn says, pointing upwards with his sketchbook.

“Oh, I forgot!” Harry smacks his forehead.

“Well, you _do_ live here now, you know.  Wasn’t going anywhere.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replies, scratching his head.  “Also, um, I don’t really know where my room is...”

“Second floor, last door to the left with the big Irish flag.”

“Thanks,” he says with a smile, and his new friend nods back.

Harry swipes his card and heads inside, walking towards the staircase leading to the second floor.  He sprints to the top of the stairs, and strides down the hall when it splits two ways.  The door he’s looking for was definitely easy to spot, the Irish flag hanging over it was hard to miss.  He quickly walks to the door, and slowly turns the door knob before he finally walks inside.

The room is clean and a lot bigger than he expected for a double room.  The beds are placed on opposite sides of the wall, both dressed in dark blue bed linens, and each side had its own work desk.  There were also two large windows with their own blinds, and Harry closes one of them to bring down the brightness of the room.  Adjusting his eyes, Harry could tell which side belongs to Niall, and walks over to look at the posters of soccer players, singers, and random trinkets of bottle caps, flash drives, and candy wrappers that were scattered all over the desk.

“A penis necklace,” Harry snorts, looking at the gaudy plastic beaded necklace with phallic charms hanging from a desk lamp.  “At least he has a sense of humor.”

Harry walks back to his side of the room, finding his bags sitting at the foot of the bed, and tosses his things onto his desk.  He grabs the first duffel bag to find it completely empty.  Panic builds up in his stomach as he grabs the other bag to find it completely empty as well.  Harry covers his face with his hands, ready to scream out from frustration.

“Hiya, Harry.”

Harry shoots his head up, slowly turning around to find the voice behind him.  The voice came from a boy shorter than him, leaning against the doorway with blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a wide smile.

“You gonna stand there or you gonna say something?”

Harry blinks, coming back to reality when he realizes this is the same student he saw earlier when he left campus.  “Sorry, how do you know my name?”

The boy laughs, and holds his hand out, “I’m Niall, your roommate!”

“Oh wow, hi!” Harry shakes his hand.  “You wouldn’t happen to know what happened to all of my clothes, do you?”

“I was the one who put them away,” Niall assures him.  “Clothes and shoes are in plastic bins under your bed, and all your jackets and pants are in the closet.”

_I can’t believe this guy, he’s already touched my underwear before I could get to it.  He’s probably sniffed some of them, too._

“You packed a lot of stuff,” he says, sitting on Harry’s bed, “Zayn and I had some trouble bringing it up here, it felt like a dead body in there.”

Harry puts a hand on his hip, shifting uncomfortably where he stood.  “Look, um,” he pauses, looking at his bags before looking back at Niall, “I don’t want to come off as rude, but you had no right to touch my things.”

“I know, but Zayn and I,” Niall nervously bites the nail of his index finger, “we just wanted you to come back and not worry about unpacking your things.  We won’t do it again, I’m sorry.”

“That’s, um,” Harry sighs, “what do I say to that?”

“You say, ‘okay Niall, I forgive you, let’s be friends’!”

Harry nervously laughs as he fixes his hair, his irritation only slightly gone.  Niall pats his arm, and Harry watches as he gets up to walk to the other side of the room.

“You liking the school?”

“It’s nice.  A bit bigger than my old one, though.”

“The one up North, right?  I bet you had an awesome time.”

“Yeah, it was pretty great.  Weather wasn’t too bad either.”

“So, are you ready for this semester?”

“Um,” Harry scratches his head, “I guess so.”

Niall’s phone goes off, distracting him from responding, and Harry kneels down to pull out the plastic bins from his bed, checking to make sure all of things were there.  Niall had organized them quite nicely, but Harry was going to have to rearrange a few things to his liking.  Once he was done itching about his things being touched, that is.

“Hey, Harry, you hungry?” Niall asks, walking towards him.

“A little,” Harry pushes the bins back and stands up, realizing Niall was just a few inches shorter than himself even with his slouched back.  “Do you know a good place to eat?”

“Sure thing, it’s on the first floor,” Niall opens the door, leading Harry out of the room.

“Wow, there’s a restaurant in this house?” Harry asks in amazement.

Niall bursts out laughing, tugging at Harry’s shirt, “I had Louis bring some food from the cafeteria, we’re throwing you a welcome dinner!”

Harry stares at Niall in surprise, and walks down the stairs with his new friend.  Nobody at his old school had done anything like this for him, and he was touched by the sweet gesture.

They reach the living room to find the coffee table covered with small aluminum plates and bottles of water.  Harry stands at the bottom of staircase, watching Zayn and Louis organizing the table, while Niall plays a quick round of Pac-Man.  The front door opens, and Harry turns his head to see a young man in a familiar red and white raglan shirt, his biceps practically bulging through the sleeves, holding two large bottles of Coke.

“Hey, did I miss anything?  Is he here yet?” he asks, handing the bottles over to Zayn.

“Oh, Liam!” Louis squeals, running up to the guest to give him a hug.  “You’re just in time!  He’s right here, come meet him.”

Louis walks towards Harry, and the young man holds his hand out. “I’m Liam!  Nice to meet you!” he says with a big child-like smile.

“Also known as my _better_ half,” Louis adds with a wink.

“Oh, so _you’re_ the Liam he mentioned earlier,” Harry recalls, shaking Liam’s hand.  It was a firm grip, but it was a little too strong for Harry to handle when he thought his bones were being crushed.

“My hand, my hand!” Harry squeaks out.

“Liam, let go!” Louis shouts, gripping Liam's wrist.

“Oh sorry, Harry!” Liam quickly takes his hand back, “I forget I do that sometimes.”

“When Liam here isn’t accidentally crushing hands,” Louis smacks Liam in the gut, “he is a physical therapy major.”  Louis leans towards Harry with a grin and whispers, “Ask him about his killer back massages.”

“Louis, _please_ ,” Liam scoffs as he rolls his eyes, “you say ‘back massages’ when you always ask for the front.”

“Do you feel that, Liam?” Louis turns around, lifting his shirt to show his back.  “Do you see the knots forming over where you should be kissing my ass?”

Harry bursts out laughing and Liam begins chasing Louis around the room.  Liam manages to get a hold on Louis by grabbing his waist and dragging him onto the ground, and Louis climbs on top of Liam, continuing their play fight.

Zayn calls for Harry to come to the table and Niall jumps over the sofa, landing on his side, and reaches for a water bottle.  “Go on, Harry,” Niall points at the food, “they’re pretty delicious, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Harry sits down, but hesitates to take a plate. “I don’t want to start without the others,” he tells Niall.

Zayn groans and leans over the sofa, yelling out, “Quit fucking around and get your asses over here so we can eat!”

“I was winning, Zayn!” Louis whines, standing up and giving Liam a hand.  “I had Liam, and I was gloriously on top for once.”

“You mean when Liam isn’t on top of you all the time,” Niall scoffs.

“How _dare_ you,” Louis growls in mock offense.  “And can you not imply such a salacious tone in front of our new roommate!”

Harry waits for Liam and Louis to sit down before he grabs a plate, unhinging its edges and removing the paper cover to reveal his dinner.  “Enchiladas in red sauce!  Yes!”

“Ah, you like Mexican food, do you?” Louis asks tapping his finger to his chin, “I made this today, so you better like it.”

“I haven’t had this in months,” Harry reaches for a fork, cutting the first enchilada in half, “I’m sure it’ll taste fine.”

“Oh, then they’ll probably be the whitewashed version of what you’re used to,” Niall says with a snort, and Louis hits him in the shoulder.

The four boys wait for Harry’s response as he chews through his first bite.  Niall was right, the taste definitely wasn’t the same ( _Needs a little salt, maybe a bit more cheese..._ ), but it was still delicious nonetheless.  Harry gives a thumbs up, and the boys begin rustling through the plates, each containing a different dish, and each boy stealing bits and pieces of food from each other.

Harry manages to speak to each of his roommates while they are eating, wanting to know a little more about the people he was going to be living with for the next few months.  He learns Zayn is a “self-diagnosed hyperkinetic” (“He just _thinks_ he’s hyperactive all the time, nobody really knows why,” Liam ponders.) who works in stage production and loves to sketch; he already knew Liam is a physical therapy major, but didn’t know he fills his clinic hours by working for the school athletics teams.   Nobody would really tell Harry what Louis does besides work in the cafeteria, and Niall?

Harry notices Niall doesn’t like to talk about himself, but still finds his story absolutely intriguing.

Louis tells him Niall entered the university with the highest test scores, giving the school a much needed grant by the government to keep several areas of study from shutting down.  Despite majoring in information technology, his high IQ and accelerated learning speed in other courses gave him the highest grade point average in the history of the school.  And because Niall made the school look so good, they gave him special privileges that expanded beyond anything Harry knew to be legal.

“So that,” Louis grins as he cleans his hands with a napkin, “is the story of your new friends, Harry!”

It puzzles Harry that Liam and Louis seem to know everything about everyone in the house.  In fact, they never seem to leave each other’s side.  The clincher about these two were that they never started or finished a sentence without saying each other’s names.

“You’re a great storyteller, Louis,” Liam smiles, lifting Louis’ chin with his index finger, “has anyone ever told you that?”  Liam lightly nuzzles the tip of his nose over Louis’s, making him laugh and scrunch his face in response.

 _Well that’s different..._ Harry thinks.  “Hey, so um, are you guys...” Harry tilts his head, “I mean, you know... you just... _look together_?”

“We ‘look together’!” Liam exclaims.  “That is the nicest thing we’ve heard, isn’t that right, Louis?”

“Why Liam, who dares to speak an unkind word about us?” Louis shakes his head.  “You’ll figure it out for yourself, young Harry.”

Liam and Louis stand up to clear the table, and Niall gives a wide smile to Harry when they move out of the way.

“Did you enjoy dinner?” he asks, scooting closer to Harry.

“Yeah, it was great,” Harry says with a smile.  “Nobody’s ever done that for me before, I really appreciate it.”

“Look at that, you’ve got dimples,” Niall lightly touches Harry’s cheek with his index finger, intrigued.  “It won’t be the last.”

Harry laughs at Niall’s touch, and hopes his face didn’t turn pink.  “Um, so it’s just us living here, right?”

“Yup, just us five,” Niall rests his head on Harry’s shoulder.  “I chose you ‘cause it said you were transferring from up North.”

“That’s really not a testament to my design knowledge, sorry to say.”

“Nobody knows what the hell Louis does, I still let him live here, don’t I?”

Harry lets out a laugh and Niall lightly nudges him in the stomach.  The table’s all cleaned up and everyone’s lounging on the sofas watching television when Niall stands up to stretch.

“I’m heading to bed,” he says with a yawn. “Thanks for dinner,” giving a high five to Louis. “You coming, Harry?”

“I think I’m just gonna stay for a little bit, you go ahead.”

Niall nods his head and shuffles up the stairs.  It was still pretty early for Harry, so he decides to continue watching a show about lions with Liam and Louis, while Zayn ran for his sketchbook and told Harry to sit still while he sketched him.

“Your hair has _the_ most perfect lighting right now, if you move I’ll kill you,” he says, scratching intently at his sketchbook.

Harry feels himself nodding off within a few minutes, his eyes closing faster than he can keep them open.  Zayn nudges him awake some time later, letting him know he’s done sketching and shows him the results.

“Zayn, this is literally my hair!” Harry exclaims in amazement, handing back the sketchbook.  “I mean, obviously it _is_ my hair, but this is like an exact replica!”

“I can sketch a lot of things,” Zayn declares with a wide grin.  “Do you think maybe you could model for me?”

“Uh, model?  Like how?”

“Model, as in, you pose in different positions and I sketch you.  Obviously.”

“Oh okay,” Harry shrugs.  “I don’t have to go nude, do I?”

“Unnecessary!” Zayn exclaims, standing up to stretch.  “I sketch myself for that.”

Harry blinks in confusion, and Zayn ruffles his hand through the mess of Harry's curls, before they both call it a night.  Zayn runs to his room, and Harry’s walking up the stairs when he notices Liam carrying a hyperactive Louis over his shoulder.  Harry walks back to his room and switches on the lamp from his work desk, hearing Niall’s light snores fill the room.

He grabs the duvet on his desk and dumps it in the closet, quickly grabbing some fresh clothes with his toiletries, heading to the bathroom to clean up.  Coming back refreshed, Harry walks over to Niall’s side, and quietly studies his profile as he pulls up the thin blanket over Niall’s body.

_He looks like angel; like those cute little cherubs in Italian paintings.  Wait, why am I looking at him like that!  It’s gotta be those fake enchiladas.  I need to sleep._

Harry turns off the light and feels his way through the dark before his legs hit the side of his bed.  He crawls under his blanket, and stares at the night sky through the slits of the blinds on his window.   _This wasn’t too bad for the first day_ , he thinks.  Harry sighs and hears Niall shifting around in his bed.

“Harry,” Niall whispers, “you awake?”

“Kind of,” he whispers back.

“Do you need more pillows?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Just let me know if you do.  Good night, Harry.”

“I will.  Good night, Niall.”

–

Classes begin and most of Harry’s professors release the students early on their first day–mostly reviewing their course outlines and leaving the rest of the day to themselves.  Harry manages to have three back-to-back classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, and a five-hour class on Friday mornings that he happens to share with Zayn.  They are all the intermediate design classes he needs, and they won’t be difficult at all.  Despite his near-perfect schedule, it left him with very little time to eat between breaks.

Niall was the only one who ever texted Harry, asking if he’d eaten before or after class.  If he replied with a “no” or “not yet”, Niall would get Louis to send a lowly bus boy to wait by his one of classes with a take-out box of hot food.  Harry secretly loved the special treatment, he felt like a prince at this school.

One day, Niall doesn’t send his usual text to Harry, asking if he’d eaten anything.  Harry is a little hurt, and sends a smiley of a sad face to Niall out of spite.  When Harry walks out of his last class of the day, he detects the strong scent of grease–like a juicy burger with gooey melted cheese sticking to a bun.  His stomach tenses, growling and aching with hunger.

_Dammit, Niall!  Of all days for you to not send me a bus boy with food!  I don’t need your charity anyway.  Oh, I shouldn’t say that, I always have an attitude when I’m hungry._

Harry leaves the building holding his stomach, slowly walking down the stairs when he hears someone yelling from behind.  He pays no attention to it, and keeps walking forward.

“Hey!” Niall jumps in front of him, and Harry stumbles backward in surprise.  “Didn’t you hear me yelling your name?”

“Sorry, I guess I was too hungry to notice,” he replies, rubbing his stomach.

“That’s why I was calling for you, dumb ass,” Niall laughs.  “I brought you food!”

Niall holds up a paper bag, and Harry takes a peek inside, finding two large water bottles and two styrofoam boxes.  The smell is so delicious– _Please let these be cheeseburgers, oh god let this be it_ –that his stomach practically jumps out of his body.

“Niall, you brought all this for me?”

“No, I brought it for _us_ ,” he motions for Harry to follow him to a sitting area.  “Louis isn’t in the kitchen today, so I figure I’d get you some outside food.”

“What about Liam and Zayn, won’t they be angry?” Harry asks, watching Niall take the items out of the paper bag.

“They can take care of themselves,” Niall snorts handing Harry his food, “I only do this for you.”

“For me?” he asks in surprise, “I thought you did this for all the guys?”

“No, just you,” Niall says nonchalantly, followed by a wink.  Harry feels his cheeks get warmer, and puts his head down to hide his smile.

“Harry, I paid a lot of money for these, you better eat your food!”

Harry frantically opens his box and to his delight, finds a double cheeseburger lying over a bed of fat, crispy fries.  “Yes! I knew it was a burger!" he exclaims.  "I love ‘em crispy, I do I do,” Harry sings as he stuffs  several fries into his mouth.

Niall tosses a few ketchup packets to Harry, and rips them open with his teeth, squeezing out its contents onto a corner of his box.  Harry picks up the burger with both hands, examining its beef to bun ratio–"I have to eat the part where the patty sticks out, Niall, I can’t help it"–and takes a huge bite.  The flavor of the hot, juicy beef patty has Harry closing his eyes and letting out a loud ecstasy-laden moan that makes Niall burst out laughing.

“Tasty enough for you?” Niall snickers behind his burger.

“I have been waiting _all_ day for this,” he replies, taking two more consecutive bites.  “Thanks, Niall.”

“No problem,” he smiles with shrug and wipes his mouth with a napkin from the collective grease.  “So!  Northern California,” Niall drums the table with his hands, “is it better up there than it is down here?”

“There were good and bad parts about it like any place,” Harry bends a large fry in half, dipping it into his ketchup and taking small bites from it.  “The weather was probably the best part, I think–breezy and all that.  But you forget how much you miss home when you’ve been away for so long, you know?”

“Well then, welcome back, Harry!  Did you get loads of pussy for being from down south?” he asks wiggling his eyebrows.

“Oh yeah,” Harry rolls his eyes.  “Less pussy, more dick–if I am being honest with you.”

“Watch out, Harry Styles: Dick Patrol!” Niall exclaims, imitating a siren to Harry’s amusment.

“You don’t mind that, do you?” Harry asks, nervously picking the bun of his burger.  “The whole dick thing?  I mean, I just don’t want to make you or the guys uncomf–”

“Harry,” Niall interrupts, his expression turning serious, “don’t _ever_ think me or any of the guys would give you a hard time for your personal preferences.”

“Thanks,” Harry nods as he smiles, “for understanding, I mean.”

Niall leans over the table, and lightly pokes Harry’s dimple.  “It’s no big deal,” he says sticking his tongue out, and Harry responds by playfully trying to bite Niall’s finger.

Harry’s taking the last few bites of his burger when Niall belches loudly, and laughs when he excuses himself.  “Sorry,” he coughs after taking a drink from his water bottle, “guess I ate faster than I should have.”

“I’d hate to see what you’re like with indigestion,” Harry snorts, closing up his take-out box.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Niall squeaks out, grabbing the box from Harry, “you didn’t even finish your fries!”

“But they’re soggy, why would you–”

“It’s food!” he whines, opening the box again.

Harry watches in disbelief as Niall eats the last handful of mushy fries, realizing Niall would eat anything if it still tasted good enough.  “Okay, I’m done,” Niall declares with a mouth full of potatoes.  “Let’s go back to the house.”

“Ugh!  Niall, seriously,” Harry exclaims, standing up to throw the boxes away, “chewing food with your mouth closed tastes better.”

Niall crumples his napkin, throwing it at Harry’s head.  Harry laughs and picks it up, throwing it back at Niall before he drags Harry in the direction of their house.  Niall tells Harry about his first year at the university, and he’s entranced once more by his roommate’s life story.  Well, one of many, anyway; Niall seems to have a lot of stories to tell, and Harry is willing to listen to every one of them.

“Don’t you feel pressured having that title?” Harry asks, fumbling with the straps of his backpack.  “I mean, ‘smartest kid in school’ sounds pretty daunting.”

“Not really, it just means I have a high GPA,” Niall shrugs.  “But I like learning new things, y’know?  Even really tough shit like astrophysics makes me want to work hard enough just to understand all of it.”

“Jeez, astrophysics!  You’re kind of amazing, did you know?” Harry says with a smile.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Niall laughs, grabbing Harry in a headlock.  “Now give us a kiss!”

Harry tries to dislodge himself from Niall’s grip, and the two end up spinning in a circle before they fall over on the grassy area near the staircase of Decuyper House.

“Thanks for taking care of me today,” Harry turns his head to face Niall.  “I’ll pay you back one of these days.”

Niall stands up, and cleans off the grass from his clothes.  “You don’t have to,” holding his hands out to bring Harry to his feet, “I take care of everyone.”

–

Somewhere close to midnight, Harry tucks himself into bed when Niall comes into the room and turns on the lights.  Harry whines from the light surprising him, and Niall gives him a weak “sorry” when he walks to his side of the room.  Harry covers his eyes with his arm, listening to Niall rustle around on the floor.  The light turns off to Harry’s relief, and the room is silent for a while until Harry feels something poke his stomach.

“Hey!” Harry jerks his legs, “What was that for!”

“Just wanted to ask you something,” Niall whispers.

“Well, what is it?” he asks irritated.

“Does it bother you that much that I get food for you?”

“Oh,” Harry’s shoulders sag down, feeling guilty for getting snappy.  “Of course not, Niall.  It’s just...I just thought you did it for everyone in the house, not just me.  But I like that you do.”

Niall lets out a soft chuckle.  “Good.  I’m glad.”

“Today wasn’t so bad either, we should do that more often.”

“Let me know and we’ll do it,” Niall says with a yawn.  “Ooh, good night, Harry.”

“Good night, Niall.”

Niall walks to his bed and jumps in, shifting around a bit before he finally stops, and Harry listens to his rhythmic breathing.  Harry turns over to his left side facing the wall with a big Cheshire cat-like grin on his face.  He closes his eyes, ready to fall asleep, and all he can think about was the wink Niall gave him when he nonchalantly said, “ _No, just you._ ”  Harry quickly opens his eyes, and his heart begins to race.

Harry props himself up with an elbow, and looks over at Niall’s half of the room in the dark.  His heartbeat begins to settle, but he feels a weird twinge in his chest listening to Niall’s soft breathing.  He lies down again, wondering if there is more to Niall’s sweet charity.

–

The week before midterms slowly creeps around the corner, and Harry feels himself getting tense and agitated, wanting to make sure his work is up to his professors’ standards.  Niall still has Louis bring him food between classes, but Harry doesn’t eat any of it until an hour before bed.  The stress was getting to Harry and he couldn’t bring himself to be as laid back as his roommates.

Quietly working in his room, Harry taps away at his laptop on his web design homework, attempting to memorize the complicated syntax.  He just needed to create a simple lightbox, and all of the coding starts to look the same when he can't figure out why none of it was working.  Harry’s eyes begin to rapidly dart around the text file, and he slams his laptop shut out of frustration.

Harry covers his face with his hands for a moment, and rubs his eyes for relief.  “God, this is such horseshit!” he yells out loud.

“Busy day?”

Harry jumps in his seat, realizing Niall had quietly made his way into their room.

“Jesus!” he shouts, punching Niall in the arm when he stands up.  “Warn me before you do that!”

“Hey, no need to yell,” Niall waves him off.

“Oh, fuck you, Niall,” Harry seethes.  “I can’t deal with you and I can’t deal with all this syntax shit, just get the hell out!”

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, Harry?” Niall raises his voice, shoving Harry’s seat across the room.  “I ask you a question and you’re cussing me out–what the fuck is your problem?”

“ _My_ problem?” Harry laughs mockingly, “I slave away at my work all goddamn day and every time I see you, you’re doing _nothing_!”  Harry emphasizes the last word by slamming his fist on the wall.  “I swear it’s like you’re not even fucking trying and you just sit around watching me fail!”

“Hey, do _not_ fucking insult me like that!” Niall yells, shoving Harry backwards.  “I just turned in three projects that took five weeks to complete–and I bet you didn’t know that shit, did you?”  Niall’s slowly pushing Harry against his work desk, their faces just inches away from each other.

“I have enough responsibility taking care of everyone in this house _and_ doing all of these projects, and I don’t need _you_ acting like a dick to _me_ because you won’t ask for help!”

“I can take care of myself, Niall!  You don’t need to take care of everyone!”

“Yes, I do, Harry!”

“Why, Niall!?  Why can’t you let me do this for myself?”

“Because nobody did it for me!” Niall screams at the top of his lungs, his face now a deep shade of red.

“Nobody?” Harry says stunned, taking a slight step back.  “But you told me about your first year, you said–”

“I just want to help you, Harry,” Niall interrupts, his voice returning to normal.  Harry’s confused, looking between a tense Niall and the wall behind him, unsure of what to say.

“Whatever,” Niall huffs as he walks away, “I’m going downstairs,” and swings open the bedroom door.

“Niall, no–I’m sorry!” Harry lunges across the room, grabbing Niall’s arm.  “I’ve been so stressed about this class and it’s fucking me up, I didn’t mean to take it out on you!  Please don’t be angry.”

Niall puts his hand over Harry’s, and a weird, but warm sensation shoots through his veins.  Harry’s never felt it before and he kind of wanted to feel it again– _multiple times_.  Zayn had touched his hands and arms plenty of times when he’d modeled for him, but he never felt a rush of blood go through his body like when Niall did it to him just now.

“Tell me what’s wrong, I can help you with your work,” he says softly, removing his hand from Harry’s, and walks towards the desk.

“It’s javascript coding, I don’t know if you can,” Harry picks up his chair for Niall to sit.  “All of these functions and variables are driving me crazy, I can’t do it anymore.”

“I took this class a while back, shouldn’t be too difficult to remember,” Niall gets comfortable in Harry’s chair, opening his laptop.  “Looks like you’re trying to do a lightbox, yeah?  Getting the picture to pop up?”  Harry’s relieved when Niall figures out his problem, and he nods, watching Niall as he looks over the coding on the text file.  He begins mumbling under his breath, typing and deleting a few codes, and begins clapping, much to Harry’s amusement.

“Look at that, all you were missing was a semi-colon!” he points out on the screen, and stands up to let Harry sit in his seat again.  Harry saves the text file and Niall leans over him when he opens up a web browser, previewing Harry’s code.  Harry breathes a sigh of relief when the lightbox finally works and Niall high fives him with pride.

“Thanks, Niall, you really saved me there.”

“You’re welcome,” nudging Harry’s shoulder with his own.  Harry detects the faint scent of lime on Niall’s skin when he inhales, and is suddenly intoxicated by its light perfume.  Niall leans his body a little closer, typing in an extra code, and Harry quickly looks away when he catches himself staring at his roommate.

Niall stands upright when he’s done, and puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder.  “You can always ask me for help, you know.  I mean, I don’t know _everything_ ,” he says with an eye roll, “but I’m a fast learner.”

“You’d be my private tutor?” Harry jokingly asks.

“Why not?  We could do study sessions if you wanted.”

“I’d like that,” Harry replies, nodding his head with a grin.  Niall opens his mouth to say something but hesitates, and rubs the back of his neck instead.

“I-I’ll be downstairs if you need me,” he stammers, heading towards the door, and Harry immediately stands up.  “Hey, Niall?”

Niall looks back at Harry with flushed cheeks, his hand tightly gripping the edge of the doorway.

“I’m sorry I was being a dick.  I’m really not like that.”

“I know you’re not,” he says with a weak smile, and Harry feels his heart flutter when Niall leaves the room.

Harry took Niall up on his offer, and the two friends frequently collaborated for their study sessions, even if Harry already understood the lessons.  He was grateful for Niall’s help–and a little more than that, maybe.  Niall was finally opening up to Harry, speaking about his family, or telling him random stories about school, or anything that piqued his interest and just had to let Harry know.  Harry loved it when Niall would text him random trivia throughout the day, and his interest in Niall piqued when he felt himself slowly becoming attracted to him during their sessions.

“You have the explanation written down for your assignment, I saw it.”  Niall skims through Harry’s written notes, running a finger along the lines of the paper.  “Here it is: ‘ _Simplify the user interface for primary, secondary, and_ –’ um, Harry?”

Harry wasn’t really paying attention to Niall, mostly just listening to his voice while he doodled Niall’s initials on the edges of his notebook.  It takes Harry a moment to realize Niall had stopped speaking, and he looks up from his notebook with widened eyes, his skin feeling a little hotter than normal when he realized Niall was staring at him.

“What?” he asks innocently.  “What was the question?”

“Don’t do that," Niall laughs, pointing at Harry’s notebook full of doodles and hearts.  "Come on, pay attention, you need full credit for this project.”

“I was paying attention, you said something about a face!” Harry denies, quickly scratching out his and Niall’s names from the page.

“ _Interface_ , you geek,” Niall replies, pushing Harry aside to look at the notebook.  “Ooh, why do these hearts look like the letters ‘N’ and ‘H’!  You’ve been writing my initials!”

Harry squeaks when Niall tries to snatch his notebook away, and moves swiftly enough to tear half the page off from its spiral wiring.  “They're not your initials!” he blushes, crumpling the paper, “I’m just coming up with a logo for class!”

“Oh Harry,” Niall shakes his head, “if you were taking the logo design class, which I know _you are not_ , you would keep those sketches.”

“All right, fine!” Harry sighs, tossing the wad of paper over his shoulder.  “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to admit you were writing my initials.”

“They weren’t yours!” Harry blushes again, and if he had a wooden nose, he's quite sure it'd be the size of a ten foot pole by now.  “You were looking at it the wrong way!”

“Are you telling me that the ‘N’ was supposed to be a ‘Z’ for Zayn!?” Niall claps his hands, cackling loudly.  "Well, I mean, obviously Zayn is a good looking dude, but he's not exactly boyfriend material at the moment."

"Oh, and like you are?" Harry bravely asks.

Niall raises an eyebrow, and slowly leans towards Harry to whisper in his ear.  Harry fears Niall's answer, and regrets he even asked the question.  Niall's breath is hot against the skin of his neck, and he can feel the warmth of his lips hovering just centimeters away.

"I'm trying to teach you a lesson," he purrs, making Harry slightly shiver when he felt Niall's bottom lip graze his earlobe.  "Think about that when I punish you,” Niall lightly blows into Harry’s ear, “for not paying attention."  Harry tightly grips the edge of his desk, noticing Niall’s cheeks are a near shade of hot pink when he leans back into his chair.

“And what if _you_ don’t pay attention?” Harry says nervously, his knuckles turning white.  “What do I get to do to you?”

Niall licks his lips, and goes back to reading Harry’s notes.  “It’s not possible,” he says with a slight smirk, “I’m always paying attention to you.”

Harry becomes a bit more cautious around Niall after that incident, but he can’t help but notice the smallest things about Niall: his wide toothy grin, the way his eyebrows arch when he questions something, and the faint perfume trail of lime on Niall’s skin that makes Harry’s brain go haywire.  Harry starts to imagine throwing Niall onto his bed, pinning his hands over his head, and breathing in the zesty citrus notes until he was sated.  It never occurred to Harry how much he was beginning to like anything citric, no thanks to Niall.

Harry hadn’t been attracted to anyone in a while, and his past relationships mostly consisted of disastrous blind dates arranged by his friends while he was up North.  He wasn’t ever really looking for anyone, but now Niall was someone he wanted all to himself.  Everything from the top of Niall’s blond hair to the soles of his oversized high-top shoes made Harry want him even more, and it killed him on the inside the closer they got during their study sessions.

_This is terrible, Niall wouldn’t want me back.  What if he did, though...  Please just let him have some sort of feelings for me?  Just a teeny little bit, I don’t ask for much._

–

A deep freeze and non-stop rainstorms hit the campus the week of midterms, leaving the school with limited power and the announcement that all exams would be postponed. The rising street floods and downed power lines left most students scrambling to get back home, and the remaining students to fend for themselves in the campus gymnasium.

Harry, Niall, and Zayn chose to stay in the house, while Liam and Louis chose to go back to Louis’s home for a while.  The boys didn’t cook that often, but with the gas turned off, Niall took advantage of the fire place, using newspapers, twigs, and Zayn's collection of disposable lighters to cook a couple of frozen steaks between the three of them for dinner.

The first night of the rainstorm left the entire house as cold as a meat locker, and Zayn managed to steal a couple of flashlights and thick blankets from the school’s stock room, leaving a few for Harry and Niall.  Their room was still too cold to sleep in, and Harry and Niall took it upon themselves to double up on their clothing to stay warm.

“Oh fuck, I don’t know how I’m gonna sleep tonight,” Niall shivers, quickly putting on a hoodie over his thermal shirt.

“What if we end up like those people who were in a plane crash and ate each other to survive?” Harry asks, adjusting the array of blankets on his bed.

“I’d eat everyone in this house even if we _weren’t_ in a plane crash.”

“You wouldn’t eat me,” Harry hops into his bed, pulling the blankets to his chin, “I don’t have enough meat on my bones.”

“That’s what people say about chicken wings!” Niall interjects, stumbling a little when he puts on his second layer of thick socks.  “Besides, your thighs have a lot of meat.”

Harry bursts out laughing, and catches a glimpse of Niall smirking at him.  “Why are you looking at my thighs!”

“You know, for a guy who wears really tight jeans,” Niall says pointedly, “did you not think I wouldn’t notice?” and turns off his flashlight before jumping into bed.

“I didn’t think they were _that_ tight...”

“They’re tight enough, Harry,” Niall yawns.

Harry and Niall hear each other shiver in the dark, and instead of getting warmer, the room itself grew colder and colder.  Harry buries his face under his duvet to warm his nose, and closes his eyes only for a moment when he hears Niall quickly rustling out of bed.

“Hey, move over,” Niall whispers, shaking his arm.

Harry immediately sits up.  “What’s wrong?”

“I’m still too cold, make some room for me!”

“Uh, I-I don’t understand,” he stammers, unsure if he just heard the most bizarre request.

“Harry, please?” Niall whines, “I’m freezing my nuts off over here!”

Shaking his head out of his confusion, Harry flips the covers and moves aside.  Niall crawls into the space behind him, adjusting his smaller body to Harry’s large frame.  Harry’s unsure what to feel at this moment, but he hopes Niall doesn’t feel or hear his heartbeat racing at a breakneck speed.

“Getting warmer already,” Niall sighs in relief.  “Good night, Harry.”

Harry attempts to respond, but lets out a squeak instead, and lifts the duvet over his head to hide his embarrassment.  He shifts his body to sleep on his left side, biting his lips to keep it together.  It feels like a dream having Niall be this close to him and Harry can’t believe any of this is real.

_It’s okay, you can deal with this.  Niall just needs to stay warm, lots of people have body heat issues._

Niall yawns quietly, a slight shudder escaping from his throat when he exhales.  Harry can feel the shivering of Niall’s body against his back, and Harry shifts backwards, lending some of his heat to warm up his friend.  Niall lets out a soft whine when he shimmies his body forward, and Harry smiles when Niall’s shivering comes to a slow halt and turns into a rhythmic breathing when he finally falls asleep.

It was uncommon for Harry to share his bed with someone he likes, considering his track record isn’t really that great, but something inside of him felt like this could be his chance to be even closer to Niall.  But the more Harry thinks about it, the more he hopes this need for each other’s warmth will last beyond just one night.

–

Harry wakes up a few hours later, blinking slowly to adjust to the overcast light entering the room.  A light breathing grazes the back of his neck and he looks over his shoulder, smiling when he finds Niall still sleeping peacefully behind him.

Propping himself up with one elbow, Harry feels a weight holding him down, and lifts the covers to find Niall’s arm draped over his waist.  Harry’s heart jumps a little bit, and he grins just as wide as Niall does on a daily basis.  He bites his lip, slowly running his hand over Niall’s to link them together, but the moment is ruined when he hears Zayn’s voice traveling down the hall, and Harry immediately lies back down before the door knob turns.

“Rise and shine, my little dickheads!” Zayn sings, opening the door, “Rise and–oh shit.”

Harry keeps his body as still as possible, his curls hiding the eyes that were blown wide open.  His heart beats out of his chest, and the hairs on his neck feel like needles when they stand up.   _Please Zayn, not now–just go away._  Soon, the door clicks shut and Harry breathes a sigh of relief.

The left side of his body begins to ache, and he beckons Niall to wake up when he can no longer stand to be in the same position.  He lifts Niall’s arm from his waist, intentionally bouncing around on the bed to his right side to face Niall, and smiles at his peaceful state.

“Wake up,” Harry commands, poking Niall in the forehead.  Niall stirs, and wraps his arm around Harry again.

“Still warm,” Niall mumbles, “staying here forever.”

“Let me go, I need to use the bathroom.”

Niall grumbles against Harry’s pillows and rolls over to his back.  Harry climbs over him and stumbles to the floor, gathering some fresh clothes before he heads to the bathroom.

After hanging his clothes on a towel rack, Harry walks over to the toilet and barely unbuttons the opening of his pajamas when Zayn bursts through the door.

“Christ, Zayn!” Harry shouts, quickly covering his crotch.  “Don’t fucking do that!”

“Oh, sorry,” he says earnestly.  “Anyway, can you model a tuxedo for me?”

Harry blinks in confusion, unsure of the question. “Where the hell did you get a tuxedo?”

“The ‘lost and found’ bin, of course!  Someone turned in a tuxedo so I took it,” Zayn says with a big grin.

“Oh,” Harry straightens up, “is it actually going to fit me?”

“Bit big, but it’ll fit,” he bounces on his feet, and looks down at Harry holding his crotch.  “Are you done?”

Harry glances down, using his other hand “Uh, I haven’t gone at all?”

“Well what the hell have you been doing this whole time?” Zayn asks, throwing his hands up when he walks out.  “God, nobody knows how to multitask in this house!”

Harry waits until he hears Zayn run down the stairs, and finally relieves himself.  Despite the lack of power in the area, the school was prepared with several backup generators, giving just enough power for most of the dormitories to have running hot water.  Harry turns the shower handle to its hottest setting, waiting for the right amount of heat before he undresses and steps into the stall.

The hot water hisses on Harry’s skin, its steam rising above, creating a four-sided wall.  He puts his hands against the cool tiles, letting the water wet his hair before he put his head down to let it run down his back.  He closes his eyes only for a moment when he looks over his shoulder, finding the shadow of a familiar figure beyond the wall of steam.

“Niall?  Is that you?”

“Expecting someone else?” he asks, walking towards Harry.

Niall stops in front of the stall, and Harry turns around to face him. “What is it, Niall?”

“Nothing,” he says, raising his hand to cup Harry’s neck, “nothing you can’t handle,” and kisses him on the lips.  Harry eagerly places his hands on the small of Niall’s back, bringing him closer when their tongues meet to deepen their kiss.  Niall briefly sucks on Harry’s bottom lip, lightly biting it when he moves on to kissing Harry’s jaw and down the front of his neck.

A fully clothed Niall slowly backs Harry against the tiled walls, his hands sliding down Harry’s lean torso in the same motion as the hot water hitting them from above.  Harry grabs the back of Niall’s head, roughly kissing him as he ran his free hand down Niall’s back, gripping the layers of clothing that blocked him from seeing Niall’s body.

“You’re all wet,” Harry whispers, breaking the kiss.  “I want all of you.”

Niall grins against his lips and takes a step back, unzipping his hoodie. “If you want me,” he whispers, tossing his hoodie on the wet floor, “I’m going to make you work for it,” and backs away from the stall even further.

“I’ve worked hard enough to get this far,” Harry growls.  “Come back here!”

“You don’t listen, do you, Harry?” he takes another step back, disappearing into the wall of steam. “Or would you like me to teach you another less–”

“Fuck!” Harry shouts, jumping from the sudden sting of ice cold water that sprayed onto his body, ruining his Niall-induced fantasy.  He can hear Niall and Zayn shouting at each other, their indistinct voices vibrating through the frosted window nearby.

Harry steps aside and holds his hand out under the cold water until it slowly went back to normal.  When he steps in front of the shower head, he closes his eyes and replays his fantasy of Niall one more time.  Harry tightly grips his half erect cock, and slides his hand up and down his shaft as quickly as he could, continually thinking about Niall’s mouth all over his body.  He breathes heavily against the tiled wall when he comes a few minutes later, and hastily washes his hair before stepping out and drying off.

Harry walks back to his room to find his bed neatly made, and Niall sitting at his own work desk, wearing a red bathrobe and a towel over his head, rifling through mounds of papers.

“Have a good shower?” Niall asks, now drying his hair off.

“Yeah, it was pretty refreshing.”

“Took you long enough.  Forty minutes, almost.”

_Don’t say you were masturbating, don’t say you were masturbating, don’t say you were masturbating._

“Um,” Harry quickly turns away, throwing his clothes into a hamper, “the water was masturbating.”

_FUCK!  GET IT TOGETHER, HARRY!_

“Oh, that was Zayn,” Niall replies nonchalantly.  “He was messing with the hose outside.  I was yelling at him to stop and well,” he holds his hands out, presenting the bathrobe, “that’s why I’m dressed like this.”

“How strange,” he says with a nervous laugh.

“Zayn’s been on a three-day bender of insomnia and speed–it’s starting to wear off.  Can you blame him?” Niall shakes his head and holds up a small booklet.  “Ah!  Here it is, the instruction manual for remote control helicopters,” he says with a wide smile.

“Are you building something?”

Niall tosses his towel aside when he stands up, and places a small red pouch over the manual.  “You’ll see soon enough.”

Harry follows Niall out of the room where a commotion of loud music and singing fills the house.  “Zayn, turn that down!” Niall yells as they walk down the stairs.  “Zayn, didn’t you hear me!”

They reach the bottom of the stairs where they’re met with the sight of Zayn in a wet t-shirt, seductively dancing with a towel, and turning up the volume on his iPod.  Zayn’s back is facing the two of them when he swivels his hips, and rubs the towel over his ass singing:

“ _But if you're looking for fastlove, if that's love in your eyes_ ,” Zayn looks over his shoulder, and winks at Niall.  “ _It's more than enough, had some bad luck, so fastlove is all that I've got on my mind_.”

“I need to get out of here,” Niall says blankly, and walks to the kitchen.

“Wait, don’t leave me!” Harry reaches for Niall, and Zayn blocks his way, still dancing with his towel.  “ _Oh my god_ ,” Harry shakes nervously.

Zayn hardly ever made Harry nervous, but with the way he was slithering around, the only thing that frightened Harry was getting his second erection of the day.

"Hands off my merchandise, Zayn," Niall grins at Harry, leaning against the kitchen counter.

"Oh god," Harry exhales, running his hands through his hair, "I need a drink."

“ _What’s there to think about, baby?_ ”  Zayn places his hands on Harry’s waist, and does a body roll against him.  Harry panics and looks at Niall for some sort of reassurance, but Niall just simply winks at him, and continues watching the show.  “ _Get yourself some lessons in love_ ,” Zayn giggles when he comes back up, his face an inch away from Harry.

“You’re blushing.  Is this your first lap dance?”

“'Lap dance', my ass!” Niall shouts across the room.  "I don’t think he liked that at all."

“No, that was–it was very sexy,” Harry swallows, pushing Zayn aside with his eyes closed.  “Well done, thank you.”

A loud knock comes from the front door and Harry races to open it, finding Louis holding two plastic bags and Liam standing behind him with cardboard boxes stacked above each other.

“Good morning!” Louis says, breezing past Harry.  Liam follows, and Harry stops him, taking one of the boxes on top before Liam can trip over himself.

“What’s in here?” he asks, setting the boxes on to the coffee table.

“Toy helicopters and remote controls,” Liam says.  “I found them in the donation bin by the gym and Niall has some sort of use for them, I guess.”

“Zayn found a tuxedo, now this?”

“When people say ‘donations’, they just send off what they want to get rid of without feeling bad, really,” Liam says with a shrug.  “One time someone brought a jar of pickles!” he says in awe. “Pickles, Harry!  And you know who took them?  Me.  I ate them all and no one stopped me.  I am the pickle master.”

“Ah yes, nothing like Liam and pickles,” Louis adds, sidling next to Liam.  The two link their hands together, prompting a smile from Harry.  “There’s food in the kitchen if you want any, Harry,” Louis motions with his head, using it to point towards the take-out boxes.  “Shall we be on our way, Liam?  Zayn is acting incredibly unsavory at the moment.”

Liam and Harry look over to the living room, where Zayn was now stuffing his towel down the front of his pants asking Niall, “Does this towel make my dick look big?”

“Does my foot up your ass make my dick look big?” Niall retorts, making Harry laugh.

“Uh, Louis, I think we should definitely go now,” he says, pulling Louis towards the front door.  “See ya, Harry!”

“Wait, you’re not staying to eat?” Harry asks.  "You just got here!"

“We already ate, don’t worry,” Liam smiles.  “Try not to miss us too much!” and he waves, walking out the door with Louis.

Harry heads to the kitchen and finds take-out boxes of various breakfast foods.  He searches through each of them finding belgian waffles, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and other delectable breakfast dishes.  Harry grabs a box with an omelette and fried potatoes, and Niall takes the box of waffles to the sofa, digging through the boxes Liam had brought in earlier.

Harry eats his food quickly, and Zayn drops the tuxedo he found in the donation bin for Harry to wear.  Harry’s horrified by the sight of it: it’s powder blue, not the classic black tuxedo like he’d initially thought.  Its smell is musty, like an old unopened chest stuffed in an attic, and the shoulder pads are oversized, swallowing Harry’s broad shoulders like a linebacker.  And as far as Harry was concerned, he was pretty sure the red stain on one of the jacket lapels is _not_ from a rogue ketchup packet.  Harry’s only reprieve is that the tuxedo pants were too big on him, and Zayn allowed him to wear his sweats just this once.

“I am seriously going to kill you for this,” Harry says under his breath, scratching his arms while he posed.

“Okay, so I left out a _tiny_ detail,” Zayn confesses, drawing away on his sketchbook.  “But you look good!  You look like you went to prom in a bubblegum factory.”

“Too bad whoever got shot in this didn’t shoot you first for making me wear it.”

Niall snickers loudly, and Harry sends him a piercing death glare from where he stands.

“What are _you_ laughing at, nerd?”

“You’re one to talk, Disco Harry,” Niall snorts.

Harry rolls his eyes and goes back to posing.  He changes his position every few minutes, and Zayn continues to sketch as fast as he can.  In one of the poses, he’s facing Niall who’s dismantling and reassembling the helicoptiers Liam had picked up in a matter of seconds.  Harry’s in awe of how good Niall looks with a pair of soldering tweezers in his hands, its heat radiating off the metal tip and onto the pads of his fingers.  It’s too far for Harry to see, but he can tell the wires melt at the touch of the tweezers, and imagines Niall’s touch to be just as electrifying.

Harry pictures it in his mind, lying down on his bed as Niall hovered over him, and Niall runs his hands under his t-shirt, the rough touch of his fingertips lightly scratching his chest and tweaking his nipples.  Harry shivers from Niall’s touch, his stomach trembling in anticipation waiting for Niall’s calloused hands to go even lower and reach into his–

“Harry?  You there?”

Harry snaps out of his daydream, confused by Zayn waving his hand around.  “Sorry, Zayn,” he shakes his head, “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Maybe you should pay attention somewhere else,” Zayn whispers, looking in the direction of his crotch.

“What?  I don’t–” Harry looks down, immediately noticing the bulge in his sweats.  “Oh fuck!” Harry gasps,  “When did this happen!?”

“I don’t know man,” Zayn’s eyes widen, “you just sort of started... _growing_ in front of me.”

“Hey, are you guys done?” Niall asks out loud, jumping up from his seat.  “I need the space to test this and it’s too cold to go outside.”

Zayn nods his head at Niall, and Harry runs to the kitchen, quickly changing into his normal clothes.  When he tosses the tuxedo away, a faint buzzing sound stirs in the room, and Harry turns his head to find a helicopter flying around him with Niall happily steering it with a remote control.

“I knew this would work!” Niall says with a laugh.  Niall manages to get the helicopter to circle around Harry once, before it begins to make sputtering noises.

“Uh, Niall?” Harry ducks, and Niall’s losing control of the helicopter.

“Oh shit, malfunction!  Hold on a sec!” he shouts, hitting the remote control with his hand.

Harry runs out of the way, but the helicopter still follows him, despite Niall not using any of the controls.  The sputtering of the helicopter soon spins out of control, and Niall throws himself on top Harry, both landing on the sofa when the toy flies over them, and lets out a loud pop when it hits the floor.

“Sorry, Harry.  Are you okay?” Niall asks, his body crushing Harry underneath.

Harry’s holding his breath, his eyes wide and hands resting on Niall’s chest.  “That was really dramatic.”

“Aw man,” Niall whines, hoisting himself off the couch.  “That was a perfectly good helicopter.”

Harry’s still lying on his back when Zayn hovers over him, holding two flashlights on either side of his head.  “Why do you guys always smile at each other?” Zayn quietly asks, switching them on and off.

“What are you talking about?” Harry squints, covering his eyes.

“You and Niall, obviously.”

“There is nothing going on between us!”

Zayn puts the flashlights down, staring at Harry for a moment, and shrugs when he sits on the edge of the sofa.  Niall’s still picking up the shattered pieces of plastic when Harry stands up, tossing them into the cardboard box before taking out another remote control.  He smiles at Harry when he looks up, and Harry smiles back before he quickly turns away.

“Fuckin’, you just smiled at each other again!” Zayn yells from behind.

–

Some time around one in the morning, Niall sneaks into Harry’s bed again and the two sleep peacefully through the loud rainstorm.  Harry could get used to sleeping in bed with Niall, but the closer they slept, the more confusing it got for him figuring out if there was more to their late night cuddling.

_What’s it take to get you to like me back, Niall?_

When Harry wakes up, the sun’s glaring uncomfortably in his eyes, and uses his hand to slightly shield them from the brightness.  Niall’s body is facing away from Harry when he looks over his shoulder, and he attempts to climb over Niall, accidentally straddling his hip and waking him up in the process.

“Get your fucking three inch dick off of me,” he mumbles into his pillow.

“I love it when you talk nasty,” Harry coos, climbing off of Niall.  “You’re making my dick grow half an inch right now.”

Niall laughs and tries to punch Harry in the leg, but Harry ducks and swiftly grabs some clothes from under his bed.  Their faces meet when Harry comes up, and Niall gives him a lazy smile before going back to sleep.

The three friends struggle to keep themselves entertained during the day for the rest of the week the school was closed with limited power, but only Harry and Niall knew how to pass the time when they went to bed at night. For the next six nights, Niall quietly slips into Harry’s bed, briefly chatting before they fell asleep, and Harry waking up with Niall’s arms wrapped around him.

“We could do this all the time, you know,” Harry says, facing Niall.

“What, sleep?” Niall sticks his tongue out, “I like to sleep every day.”

“Yeah,” Harry closes his eyes, “sleep.”

Niall sits up and Harry opens his eyes, feeling Niall’s hand over his knee.  “What’s wrong?” Harry asks, and Niall immediately lies back down, letting Harry nestle his head on his chest.  “Nothing,” Niall whispers, “it’s nothing.”

–

When the school is reopened and recovered from the rainstorm, midterms were reinstated as soon as the power is fully restored.  Harry’s professors collaborate together, having the students do design challenges, rather than formal exams.  They’re more of a more hands-on approach, and to Harry’s advantage, considering test questions weren’t exactly Harry’s forte.

Harry’s last class of the day is in the coldest classroom on the fourth floor in the technology building, his least favorite place to be for a subject he actually enjoyed.  While finishing his design challenge, a loud buzzing noise begins distracting the students, and Harry notices a small paper balloon hovering by the window where he sits.

It continually backs up and moves forward to get inside of the classroom until the professor walks over to open the window, and quickly dodges the balloon when it zooms past his head.  Harry laughs when it flies around his desk, and recalls the time Niall flew the rebuilt helicopter in the house.

The balloon floats over Harry’s head, and he holds his hands out, letting it safely land in his palms.  Harry’s classmates gather around him, watching as he curiously examines the writing on the paper balloon:

_Good luck, Harry!_  
 _Your friends,_  
 _Niall, Zayn, Louis, and Liam_

Harry runs to the window and immediately spots Niall holding a remote control with a large antenna, waving at him from a grassy area below.  Harry excitedly waves back, playfully blowing a kiss to Niall who pretends to faint when he catches it.  Niall gets back up and blows a kiss back to Harry, and runs off when campus security approaches him on their bicycles.

“What is it?” one of his classmates asks from behind.  “Is it a bomb?”

“It’s not a bomb,” Harry turns around, “just a note from my friends.”

“Okay everyone, settle down and get back to your seats,” the professor announces.  “Harry, put that away and finish your work.”

“Sorry, professor,” he says, cradling the balloon like an infant, “it won’t happen again.”

His professor nods and walks back to his desk, and Harry sets the balloon next to his laptop.  Harry hadn’t seen his roommates all day, since he was always the first to leave the house in the morning, and he couldn’t help but smile for the rest of class.

Harry was nearly done when Niall sent his balloon, and submits his work to the school server when everything is complete.  His phone buzzes while he packs up his things, careful not to crush the balloon in his bag.

**From: Niall**  
 _didja like our message!! :D_

**From: Harry**  
 _You know I did ;) Helicopter parts, right?_

**From: Niall**  
 _haha u remembered!!_  
 _hurry back we’re going t’a party t’night!_

Harry excitedly runs out of the building, taking long strides back to Decuyper House, and runs into Zayn along the way, talking about the paper balloon they collectively sent.

“We meant to send it during your first class!  But Louis accidentally sat on it with his big ass and broke it and Niall yelled at him and he had to fix it but he got it to work again,” Zayn says in one breath.

“You okay, Zayn?” Harry puts the back of his hand against Zayn’s forehead, “you seem kind of worked up right now.”

“I’ll have you know I am _not_ on speed!” Zayn stomps his feet up the concrete staircase.  “Stop holding it against me for rubbing my dick on your leg last week!”

“What dick?” Harry snorts, and Zayn turns on his heel, gripping the crotch of his jeans.  “The dick you’re missing out on, baby!” he croons, seductively licking his lips.

Harry bursts out laughing and Zayn swipes his access card, skipping towards the living room to watch television.  Harry runs up the stairs to his room, finding Niall ruffling through a bin of clothes.

“Hey, there you are!” Niall exclaims, bouncing on his feet.

“Here I am!” Harry mimics Niall’s excitement.  “What’s this about a party tonight?” he asks, dropping his bag and removing his hoodie.

“Someone in this school is finally throwing a proper party, and we–as in, _us five_ –have been invited and we will have an awesome time.”

“I might be a bit rusty,” Harry kicks off his shoes, “haven’t been to a party in months.”

“I can keep a secret if you can,” Niall says with a wink.

Harry blushes and jumps onto his bed to hide his smile.  Niall unexpectedly yells, “Belly flop!”, and does just that to Harry, flattening his body into the mattress.

“Jeez, Niall!” Harry strains, trying to push the smaller body off of him.  “Come on, I want to take a nap!”

"Not happening!"

The two boys play fight, and Niall gains the upper hand when he straddles Harry’s thigh and their crotches accidentally bump against each other’s legs.  A rush of blood hits Harry all over, and his heart races a million miles a minute with every move Niall makes over him.    Harry begins flailing his legs in a panic, and Niall laughs loudly as their bodies bounce against each other on the bed.

“Niall, get off of me!” Harry squeals, holding Niall’s arms away from him.  “Please, I’m begging you!”

“I knew you were the begging type,” Niall shouts, “listen to how submissive you are!”

Harry releases his arms and Niall falls forward, quickly putting his hands under Niall's ribcage to break the fall.

“Give up?” Niall asks, his hands gripping Harry's own.

“You’re still on top of me and I haven’t had my nap yet.”

A squeak to the floorboards startles them, with Zayn quietly standing in the doorway.

“Liam and Louis need you downstairs,” he says, looking only at Niall.

Niall quickly jumps off of Harry, and sprints out of the room.  Harry sits up and uses his curls to hide his face, sheepishly aware of Zayn staring at him.

Zayn innocently smiles at Harry, and slyly brushes a hand over his crotch.  “Make yourself look decent, won’t you?” Zayn says, skipping out of the room.

Harry quickly stands up, noticing a bit of a bulge in his jeans, and groans in embarrassment, fully aware this is was going to happen if he didn’t get Niall off of him fast enough.  He quickly dashes to the bathroom and turns on the sink, splashing his face with cold water to calm himself down before heads downstairs where he finds Zayn reading a magazine, Liam holding Niall’s arms behind his back, and Louis gleefully jumping up and down.

“I’m not doing it!” Niall shouts.  “You can’t make me!” Liam twists his arms higher, and tries running towards Harry when he sees him.  “Fuck!  Harry, help me!”

“Liam, what the hell!” Harry shouts running towards Niall, but Zayn sticks his foot out to keep him from interfering.

“Now say ‘Liam touched me funny’!” Louis squeals with delight.

“Liam touched you funny!” he shouts with a maniacal laugh, and Louis smacks him over the head in response.

Harry doesn’t know if any of this is just a play fight, but when Louis tells Liam to pull Niall’s arms up even higher, Harry loses it, angrily pushing Louis away to get to Niall.  “If you don’t let him go I swear I will snap Zayn’s leg off and beat both you and Louis to a fucking pulp!”  Liam and Louis quietly gasp in tandem at Harry’s threatening tone, and Liam reluctantly releases Niall.

“We were just messing around, Harry,” Liam says quietly, “I don’t mean to hurt him.”

“Dick!” Niall hisses at Liam, rubbing his arms for relief.

“Liam wants a designated driver,” Zayn says out loud behind his magazine, belatedly informing Harry, “even though the party’s technically a few blocks away off campus.”

“I fucking _told_ you!” Niall says exasperated, poking Liam in the chest.  “The game plan is always the same!”

“Not for Harry,” Liam points at him, “he doesn’t know about the two-hour rule.”

“Oh yeah,” Niall blinks, and puts his hand on Harry’s shoulder.  “Basically if you don’t text any of us after two hours, we go out and look for you–gotta make sure you’re not dead or anything.”

“Got it,” Harry nods, and Niall pats him on the back, heading off to the kitchen with Liam and Louis.  Harry turns around, and stumbles backward when he’s met with Zayn’s death stare.

“Hello, Harry.”

“H-Hi, Zayn,” Harry stammers, feeling uneasy.

“Did I... _interrupt_ earlier?”

“No, we were just playing around,” Harry swallows hard, “can’t friends play with each other?”

Zayn snickers, making Harry even more uncomfortable.  “Oh, you can play with friends,” he says looking over to the kitchen.  Harry follows his stare, both of them amused by Niall eating from a pudding cup with his hands.  “But Niall wanted to tussle,” Zayn looks back at Harry, whispering, “tussle with an option to make you come,” and flops down on the couch to look at his phone.

Harry can feel his cheeks turning hot, and he quickly heads back to his room, leaning against the door when he closes it.  “ _Option to make me come_ ,” Harry mocks Zayn’s tone.  “We were just playing around,” he says out loud, climbing into bed.  “Just playing,” and Harry buries his face in his pillows, falling asleep almost instantly.

–

A loud click awakens Harry almost an hour later, and he turns his head, noticing a blurry figure near him set something on his desk.  Blinking himself awake, Harry realizes the figure is Liam when he leaves to close the door.  Harry stands up to stretch, finding several individually wrapped pastries and a small plastic bottle of milk on his work desk.  He picks up an apple fritter, and his phone buzzes while he unwraps it.

**From: Niall**  
 _eat ur food or i’ll eat it! haha yum yum yum :D_

Harry smiles at the text, but doesn’t bother to reply.  He sits in his chair and eats the food at his desk, casually texting his mom, and ignores the crumbs that fall from his mouth and onto his shirt.  Niall walks into the room, and sneaks behind Harry, wrapping his arms around him and resting a chin on his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Harry smiles, taking a bite from his fritter.

“Looking at you, obviously,” Niall says with a snort.  “Liam brought those pastries by the way, he wants us to eat before we drink,” he rolls his eyes.  “Such lightweight bullshit.”

“He has a point,” Harry replies, and Niall wipes away the stray crumbs from Harry’s mouth.  The two look at each other for a moment, and Harry could have sworn their faces were inching closer and closer.  Harry licks his lips and Niall’s bottom lip barely grazes Harry’s own before he quickly turns away and clears his throat, leaving Harry a little dumbfounded.

_Did that seriously just happen...  His breath smelled like Skittles, oh god, why’d he leave me hanging!?_

“Harry, the point of drinking is to get drunk,” he says walking towards his bed, “take that away, and you essentially destroy the core of living the university life!”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak like that before,” Harry holds a hand to his forehead, his mind still fuzzy from their ill-fated kiss.

“I challenged the school to get me out of a philosophy class,” Niall shudders.  “It was probably the only time I ever had a tantrum in front of the dean.”

Niall shakes his head and turns around, bending over to pull out the plastic bins under his bed.  Harry opens the bottle of milk and drinks from it, slyly watching Niall move his ass around from behind the bottle.  Niall stops moving when he pulls out a pair of socks, and looks over his shoulder in Harry’s direction.  Harry gasps while he’s still drinking and chokes, spilling the milk all over his mouth and shirt.

“Harry!” Niall runs up to him, lifting his shirt to wipe away the milk from Harry’s chin.  “Are you okay?” he asks, rubbing Harry’s back.

“I’m fine,” Harry coughs a few times before he stands up.  “It just went down the wrong tube, that’s all.”

“Wait, just let me get this–” and Niall wipes away a stray milk droplet from Harry’s chin with his thumb.  “You’re all–” Niall blushes when Harry bites his lip, both of their faces turning pink, “you’re all clean now.  You should get changed.”

Niall walks back to his bed, and Harry covers his mouth, hiding the smile on his face that made his cheeks hurt.  Harry rifles through the bins under his bed, quickly exchanging his damp shirt for a fresh white t-shirt and a maroon sweater.  Harry’s fixing his hair when Niall pats his arm, saying, “Looking sharp, man,” and leaves the room.  Harry smiles wide, and follows him soon after.

Harry and Niall watch a bit of television before Zayn, Liam, and Louis head downstairs, and the five boys head off to the first party of the semester.  The venue is at a large gated home just a few blocks from campus, obscured by pine trees, and decorated with people already passed out on the front lawn.  Niall immediately zooms off to the backyard, and the rest of them split four ways.  Three, if you include Liam and Louis as an single entity.

Walking through the front door, Harry struggles to make it through the house to find the kitchen.  The music thumps through the walls, and Harry finds himself continually having to shout to speak to anyone.  He manages about two beers, which really only gives him a slight buzz, and dodges anyone that continually asked about his classes.

When Harry looks at his watch, he can hardly believe his eyes when it tells him it is nearly midnight.  He doesn’t remember what time they left the house, but he does remember the two-hour rule, and Harry checks his phone, only to find Liam sent a text of a happy face to him.  Harry breaks away from the confines of the kitchen, walking around the house to find the others.  When he spots who he thinks is Zayn in the backyard, a bottle smashes to the ground, leaving most of the place into a standstill.

“Pigs!  The pigs are here!” someone shouts, sending everyone into a frenzy to run out of the house.  Harry immediately runs out looking for Zayn until someone crashes into him, and nearly falls to the ground from the impact.

“Harry!” someone shouts over the crowd.

He recognizes the shout as Niall’s voice, and stands on his tiptoes to find him.  “Niall!  Niall where are you!”

“Harry, keep shouting, I’ll find you!”

Niall’s blond hair pops up from the crowd and Harry fights his way through the hordes of people running in the opposite direction to get to him.  Harry’s a lot taller than everyone around him, and all he can feel are the shoulders and arms pushing him around a lot harder than he can force onto them.  He keeps an eye on Niall’s hair and panics when he loses sight of it, looking around in circles when he shouts Niall’s name.

“Damn it, Niall, where did you go!” Harry says to himself, and continues searching for him until he reaches the end of the backyard.  “Oh fuck, I’ve lost him, where did he–”

A pair of hands clutch Harry’s arms, and he quickly turns around, finding a frantic Niall right in front of him.  “Harry!  I thought I lost you,” Niall says in relief.  Harry doesn’t know why, but he instinctively hugs Niall, who tightly hugs him back.  They let go a few seconds later and Niall grabs Harry’s hand, running towards the open door of the backyard’s side entrance.

“We have to get out of here!” Niall says over his shoulder.  “Quickly, Harry!”

Harry grips Niall’s hand, running as fast as they can from the backyard and down the driveway where police cars flash their blue and red lights.  “Niall, what about the others– _argh!_ ”  A car slams its brakes in front of Harry, its bumper stopping with just enough force to make him lunge forward and slam his hands onto the hood of the car to break the fall.

“What the fuck!” Harry shouts when the car’s horn blares at him.

“Harry!  Oh god it’s okay you’re okay we have to get back to the house!” Niall says all too quickly, dragging Harry away from the car.  They manage to make it far enough down the street from the hectic scene of the party when the crescendo of a high-pitched scream trails behind them.  Harry turns his head and a shadowy figure crashes into himself and Niall, making them fall to the ground.

“Who the fuck are you!?” Niall shouts, climbing over Harry to get at their attacker.

“Niall, it’s me!  It’s Zayn, don’t hit me!”

“Was that you screaming?” Harry wheezes out.

“I’ve got an expired license and I can’t be seen, hurry up!”

Zayn helps Harry and Niall off the ground, and they run back to Decuyper House at lightning speed, stopping to catch their breath when they reach their front door.  Liam and Louis show up in the same state a few minutes later, debriefing the others about the night’s events.

“I can’t believe Harry got hit by a car,” Zayn laughs as they enter the living room.  “D’you think we can file a lawsuit for the insurance money?  We could use it to buy a vacuum!”

"Zayn, it's not funny, he could be seriously hurt!" Liam says annoyed.  "Are you okay though, Harry?"

“I think so,” Harry answers, scratching his cheek.  "My knees kind of hurt, but not as much as my legs from all that running."

“Oh my god, you’re bleeding!” Zayn says in horror, pointing at the red stains on Harry’s fingers.

“Holy shit, is this my blood!?” he panics.  “This can’t be my blood, get it off of me!”

Liam and Niall rush Harry to the kitchen sink, helping him clean off the dirt and blood from his hands and face.  Niall dries him off with a towel, only finding minor scratches on his hands, and Harry freaks out when they begin to shake.

“It’s okay, Harry, just stay calm,” Liam says, guiding him to the sofa.   "Louis, can he take those pills you stole from your mom last week?"

“Oh, yeah!" Louis recalls, and searches through one of the kitchen drawers until he hands Harry a small blue pillbox.  "It's paracetamol, don’t ask why I stole it," Louis says to Harry when he shakes the box.  "It’s for short-term pain, but I think you’ll be fine if you just take one since it’s a strong dosage,” he adds.

Zayn pushes Louis out of the way, excitedly holding up a baggy of weed in Harry’s face.  “Hey, I have a dimebag if you want it!”

“Seriously, Zayn!” Louis shouts, “now is not the right time!”

“Oh.  Oh!  I’ve got it,” Zayn searches his jacket, and pulls out an even smaller baggy.  “Half a tablet of ecstasy!  Whaddya say, Harry?” 

“I am seriously this close to strangling you right now,” Niall grits through his teeth.  “You gonna tell me you’ve got poppers, too?”

“I’m a little freaked out right now!” Harry says loudly, standing up.  “I'm going to bed.”

Harry walks away from the others towards the staircase, wincing when he’d bend his knee to skip every other step.  At the top of the stairs, Harry lightly rubs his knee, completely unaware Niall was standing right behind him.

“You okay, Harry?” Niall says softly.

Harry slightly jumps, giving a surprised laugh when he turns around.  “You scared me, I didn’t hear you come up.”

“Did you want to–I mean, could we?  If you want?” Niall asks nervously, making Harry wrinkle his forehead in confusion.  “Cuddle?” Niall whispers sheepishly.

“Oh!  Cuddle, um,” Harry runs his fingers over his lips, then nervously tugs at his maroon sweater.  “M-Maybe later?” he whispers.

Niall nods and Harry walks back to their bedroom, quickly changing into his sleeping clothes, and swallows a paracetamol tablet.  Harry climbs into bed and falls asleep for some time, only to wake up when Niall stumbles into the room.  Niall switches the light on, its brightness seeping through Harry’s eyelids when he notices the smell of alcohol was a lot stronger on Niall now than it was when they got home.  Niall bumps into the side of Harry’s bed and he sits up, annoyed by Niall’s drunken state.

“Lie back down, Harry.  Let me give you my oral home remedy,” Niall says with a snicker.

“Niall,” Harry stands up, “come on, I’m fine.”

“You’ll be more than fine when I’m done with you” he giggles, and pushes Harry backwards, making him yelp when he falls onto his bed.  Harry quickly tries to get back up, but Niall crawls over him, and runs his hands under Harry’s shirt, lifting it only high enough to kiss all over his ribcage and stomach.

“ _Niall,_ ” Harry whispers, gripping his bedsheets when Niall’s kisses move to his neck.  “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Niall whispers, running his blunt fingernails over Harry’s stomach.  “Zayn spilled beer on my shirt, I only smell like I’m drunk.”

“But why?” Harry says nervously, “why are you–”

“Let me do this for you,” Niall interrupts, propping himself up with his hands, “I want to make you feel better.”  Harry’s breath begins to race a lot quicker than he would like, and Niall puts a hand over Harry’s chest, calming him down.  “I want to, Harry.  But I won’t do it if you refuse.”

_Oh god, what the hell am I waiting for–yes, Niall, YES!  This is all I have been dreaming about since we met, holy christ I want your mouth all over me._

Harry quickly nods his head, breathlessly mumbling his agreement and Niall grins, going back to kissing Harry’s stomach.  Harry lets out excited gasps, his muscles tensing against Niall’s warm mouth moving down the length of his torso before Niall buries his face in Harry’s crotch.

“ _Holy shit!_ ” Harry arches his back from Niall mouthing his hard cock over his sweats, and tightly grips Niall’s hair.  Niall lowers Harry’s sweats, slowly licking the v-cut over Harry’s hips with the tip of his tongue.  Harry’s body shudders, and he forcefully yanks Niall’s head away when he feels Niall’s tongue getting a little too low on his stomach.

“ _Don’t.  Not yet._ ”

Niall nods and Harry loosens his grip, biting his lips when Niall smirks at him.  Niall dips his head and softly kisses the skin under Harry’s belly button, making Harry laugh before Niall shushes him.  Niall climbs over Harry again, straddling his waist this time, and leans down to kiss every part of Harry’s neck.  Harry accidentally bucks his hips against Niall, and they both gasp, surprised at the sensation.

“Do you still want to?” Niall asks, a little nervous.

“I need you, Niall.”

“That’s all you had to say.”

Niall moves around to position his crotch over Harry’s, their foreheads touching when they slowly grind their hips together.  Harry enters a state of unknown bliss–a kind of rapture he hasn’t felt with anyone in a long time, and here he is with Niall, wanting to make this feeling last all night.  Harry grips the back of Niall’s neck with both hands and they quicken their pace, hotly panting against each other.  Niall slides a hand under Harry’s shirt and tweaks one of his nipples, making Harry rock his hips even faster.

“ _Niall, faster, I can’t–_ ” Harry strains, his body beginning to shake with his breath becoming hotter and heavier.

Niall dips his hips even lower into Harry, and the hard denim of Niall’s jeans against the soft fleece of Harry’s sweats leave them at their last breath.  Harry isn’t fast enough to tell Niall he’s about to come, and quickly grabs Niall’s hand to cover his mouth when it finally happens.  The sound of Harry’s muffled cries sends Niall into a feverish frenzy, and Niall bites into his own hand, his body stuttering when he comes soon after.

Harry and Niall breathe heavily against each other, their hearts beating one after the other as they calm down from their high.  Niall rolls himself off of Harry, quickly walking to his bed and pulling out two small towels from one of his clothing bins.  Harry sits up when Niall walks back to hand him one of the towels, both of them quietly cleaning themselves and changing into new pajamas.

Harry can’t believe what had just happened, unsure if he was possibly dreaming in the shower again.  Niall jumps into Harry’s bed, pulling back the covers and slotting himself in the space against the wall where Harry normally slept.  Niall adjusts his body to sleep on his right side, leaving an open space for Harry to lie down.  Harry smooths out his t-shirt and turns off the lights, quickly making it back to his bed and into the comfort of Niall’s arms.  This was definitely not a dream.

“Do you feel better?” Niall whispers in Harry’s ear.

“I-I do, yeah,” Harry stammers, “it’s been a while for me.  You were amazing.”

Niall softly giggles, nestling his head into the pillows.  “You were pretty enthusiastic,” Niall quietly sighs, his breath slowing down.  “Don’t let that be the last, Harry.”

Harry turns his head to face Niall, faintly making out his features from the moonlight entering through the slits of the blinds on their windows.  Niall falls into a slow, rhythmic breathing, a sign Harry knew that Niall was starting to fall asleep.  Niall had awakened Harry's dormant need for physical contact, and Harry gave in to his desire, knowing how much they wanted this from each other.

Niall shifts his head on the pillow, lightly biting Harry on the shoulder.  “Go to sleep.  I’ll still be here when you wake up.  I always am.”

Harry smiles, shimmying his body a little lower to tuck his head under Niall’s chin.  It was all so sudden, Niall jumping on Harry the way he did, but Harry wanted what they shared tonight to be more than just a favor.  More than just two friends getting each other off for the sake of it.  Harry’s distracted when Niall wraps his arm around him, bringing him closer; and Harry closes his eyes, inhaling the last of the citrus notes lingering on Niall’s skin before he finally fell asleep.

–

The night of the first party was the only time Harry and Niall ever messed around, despite Niall’s subtle plea of possibly wanting to do it again.  It didn’t bother either of them too much, but it does bring them physically closer, and Harry particularly enjoys it when Niall would hug him, just to whisper in his ear.  Their physical affection continues to arouse the suspicions of Zayn, but now Liam is starting to catch on, too.

“So I see you and Niall are, uh, getting pretty close,” Liam whispers, not wanting Louis to hear who was across the room.  “Is it serious?”

“Are you afraid of Louis?  Why are you whispering?” Harry asks.

“I’m not afraid of my better half, Harry,” Liam says sternly, “answer the question.”

Harry stiffens a little, surprised by Liam’s tough tone.  “Serious friends, I guess?”

“You guess?” Liam giggles, then shrugs in front of a confused Harry.  “You sound just like Louis and myself after high school.”

“W-What do you mean by that, I don’t–”

“I mean,” Liam’s voice a little louder, “you and Niall are just close friends.  For now.  That’s all.”

–

Harry and the boys are invited to a party almost every other week since the first one, and some nights result in Niall drunkenly crawling into bed with Harry, only for Harry to slip out and sleep in Niall’s bed instead.  Yet, when he wakes up in the morning, Niall manages to always weasel his way into sleeping with his arm around Harry.

It’s not that Harry doesn’t enjoy Niall’s company, but it starts to bother him when Niall begins to increasingly become blackout drunk after parties, resulting in him excessively drooling all over Harry’s shirts when they slept.

“Honestly, don’t you get tired of slobbering all over my back?  It’s kind of disgusting.”

“It’s nothing, Harry, shut up,” Niall whines between Harry’s shoulder blades, pulling their bodies even closer.

“Why do you need to get drunk to sleep with me now?  You never did this before,” Harry says into his pillow.

Niall’s arm stiffens and his knee slightly jerks up, accidentally shoving Harry’s leg against the wall.  “Fuck!” Harry inhales sharply, rubbing his leg for relief.  Niall snickers and Harry feels his insides rip a little, worried Niall’s laugh is out of malice.

Harry keeps to himself from Niall for several days, deliberately asking Niall to sleep in his own bed for a while.  Harry becomes avoidant around Niall in the house, and he doesn’t realize his behavior is affecting Niall until he confronts Harry during one of their study sessions.

“Where is the external stylesheet for this document, is it linked?” Niall asks, pointing at the web coding on Harry’s laptop screen.

“Dunno,” Harry shrugs nonchalantly, “I guess.”

Niall sighs, sitting back in his seat.  “Have I done something to make you angry?”

“Angry?  What makes you say that?”

“You always look annoyed when I try to talk to you now, it... um,” Niall looks down, his voice quiet, “it really bothers me.”

“Niall no, I don’t mean to,” Harry replies softly, “I’ve just been thinking a lot.”

_About you.  About us._

Niall blinks at him, contemplating his next move. “Is it about me being drunk?  I can stop if you ask, it’s nothing when we’re together, honestly!”

Harry’s immediately jaw tenses at the word “nothing”.  He’s not entirely sure why Niall uses it whenever they sleep together, but Harry is getting pretty tired of hearing it.

“If it’s nothing then maybe you shouldn’t be near me all the time,” Harry spits outs.

"Fuck,” Niall says under his breath.  “Harry, I’m sorry–that's not what I meant."

“No, I got it, it’s always nothing to you.”

“Harry, don’t.  I didn’t mean it.”

Niall brushes the back of Harry’s hand with the knuckle of his index finger, its touch searing into Harry’s flesh.  “I won’t say it again, I promise,” Niall says, waiting for Harry to respond.  Harry can see the worry on Niall’s face, and repeats the same brush of knuckle against Niall’s hand to appease him.  Niall automatically hugs Harry, holding him tight, and Harry stays still, simply breathing him in.  A silent apology silently accepted.  For now.

–

The end of the semester quickly approaches, and Louis takes it upon himself to organize a Secret Santa before they all leave for the holiday break.  Louis also continually insists he get double the gifts, since his birthday is on Christmas Eve.

Louis swirls five pieces of folded paper into a bowl before each person picked out a name.  Harry is eager to get Niall, but winds up with Zayn’s instead.  Harry jokingly bribes the boys into giving him Niall’s name, but Louis refuses to bend the rules and demands Harry stick to the name he pulled out of the bowl.  Harry figures Zayn won’t be too difficult to shop for, since he always complains about needing new art supplies on a daily basis.

Two of Harry’s professors schedule their finals early, which gives him enough time to finish the rest of his projects.  On his day off, Harry sneaks into Zayn’s room while he attends his stage production final, hoping to find clues for his gift.

Harry rifles through the papers strewn across Zayn's work desk as quickly as he can, then through the stacks of untouched books gathering dust against the wall, nearly slipping over various paintbrushes scattered across the floor when he roams around the room.  Harry spots a tattered sketchbook sticking out from underneath Zayn’s mattress, and he lifts it up, pulling the book out to look through the drawings.  Drawings of Niall, Liam, and Louis are on several pages, most of them dated nearly three years back.  Harry continues to look through the amazing detail of Zayn's drawings until he reaches the last half of the book, chock full of realistic penises and butts, and realizes they are Zayn’s nude sketches.

“No thank you!” Harry says out loud, quickly slamming it shut and stuffing the sketchbook back where he found it.  Harry heads back into his own room and pulls out his laptop, searching online for the address of any local art supply stores in the area.  He finds one just five miles away, and gathers his things to start his early Christmas shopping.

Harry runs down the stairs towards the front door, taking a look through the peephole to make sure Zayn wasn’t around to see him leave the house.  Harry sprints towards the parking lot to his car and drives to the art supply store just several minutes away, immediately spotting its distinct lavender facade nearly half a block away before he reaches it.

The art supply store is on a corner downtown inside a quiet two-story building.  Harry creeps up the metal stairs, still paranoid that he might run into Zayn at the store, too.  He walks over to the paints section and feels his phone vibrating in his pocket.  Niall's name is flashing across the screen before he decides to answer it.

"Hey, Niall!"

“Hey, where are you right now?” Niall asks happily.

“It’s a secret.”

“A secret... _Santa_?”

Harry laughs, quickly covering his mouth to keep from being any louder.  “I didn’t even think of that, but yeah.”

“Cool!  You’re not anywhere near a book store, are you?”

“Why, are you following me?” Harry snorts, but immediately walks behind a display of canvases and easels for cover.

“No, but I can triangulate your location with my phone if I wanted,” Niall laughs.  “But, I mean, y'know I wouldn’t do that to you, obviously.”

“Aww, thanks darling,” Harry coos sweetly, and Niall begins making kissing noises on the other end.

“I’ll see you back at the house later?”

“I’ll be there,” he replies biting his lip, and ends the call.

Harry continues the search for Zayn’s gift with a huge grin on his face.  After what seems to be an hour of an internal debate, Harry settles on a new sketchbook and set of paintbrushes, and has the items wrapped in the store before he goes back to his car.

On his way back to campus, he makes a stop at a department store, and looks around for Louis’s potential birthday gift.  Instead, he ends up buying gifts for all of his friends, and hopes he hasn’t gone overboard.  He ends up buying a parka for Louis, a pajama set with various superhero logos for Liam, Hulk Smash Hands for Zayn, and a Tetris television console for Niall.

After getting the gifts wrapped, Harry passes by the accessories section when a necklace catches his eye.  He walks over to the counter, and admires the silver compass pendant hanging from a black chord.  Harry isn’t sure why the compass reminds him of Niall or why he’s compelled to buy it, but it is going to be something no one other than Niall should be wearing.

–

A few days after his shopping trip, Harry breezes through his final projects, passing with flying colors, and is well on his way to holiday freedom.  After leaving his last class, Louis unexpectedly calls him, demanding he get back to Decuyper House as soon as possible for their Secret Santa.

Harry runs to his car and grabs all of his gift bags from the trunk.  He opens the passenger seat and sifts through the glove compartment looking for the small cardboard box containing the necklace for Niall.  He stuffs it in his jacket and quickly walks back to the house where he finds Liam and Louis organizing their gifts on the coffee table.

“You made it!” Louis excitedly claps his hands.  “And you have more gifts than expected,” he says with a raised eyebrow.

“Couldn’t help myself,” Harry shrugs with a smile, handing his gifts to Liam.

“Listen to this guy,” Liam shakes his head.  “I buy at least twenty gifts just for him and he still wants more,” and places Harry’s gifts onto the coffee table.

“I thought we were doing the Secret Santa later tonight?” Harry asks, walking to the kitchen for a drink.

“That was technically the plan,” Louis replies, “but Niall caught wind of a party at MacDiarmid Hall tonight, so we obviously had to reschedule.”

“We’re here!” Niall and Zayn shout from the door.

Harry walks to one of the sofas, and the once sparse coffee table was now littered with gift bags and wrapped boxes all over.  Niall nudges him in the shoulder, giving him a wide smile, and Harry smiles back confidently, tightly gripping the box in his jacket for comfort.

“Okay, let’s start it now!” Louis exclaims, sitting everyone around the table.  “Who wants to give their gift first?”

All five boys look at each other in silence, and Harry reluctantly raises his hand.  He reaches for his box wrapped in brown paper, tied with rope, and begins looking at each boy with a smirk.  He notes the anticipation in their faces when he holds out the gift to each of them, only for Zayn to cheer loudly when Harry tosses the gift onto his lap.

Zayn excitedly opens it, and bounces in his seat when he reveals the shiny new sketchbook and paintbrushes to everyone.  Zayn jumps from his seat, tightly holding Harry’s head to his chest.

“This is so great, Harry, thanks!” Zayn exclaims, pressing Harry’s head even closer.

“Glad you–” Harry struggles to push Zayn away, “like it–will you get off of me!” and Zayn flops back down to the sofa again.

Each of them kept their names hidden so well from each other, it was quite a surprise when Niall reveals he is Harry’s Santa.  Harry opens his gift bag, finding a cookbook on Mexican cuisine and a small box containing the medallion of Saint Christopher.  Harry holds it up in awe and Niall stands up to wrap the necklace around Harry’s neck.

“I’m not sure about your religion,” Niall says, clasping the necklace, “but you’ve travelled a lot and I figured this guy can help you out.”

Harry puts the pendant between his fingers, examining the inscribed message of protection: _Behold St. Christopher and go your way in safety_.  Niall stands on his tiptoes to hook his chin over Harry’s shoulder, but Harry instead turns around to give him a hug.

“Thank you, Niall,” he says with a face full of red cheeks, “I’ll never take it off, it’s beautiful.”

Niall grins and turns his head, giving Harry a quick kiss on the cheek.  “I know you best,” he whispers.

“Group hug!  I demand a group hug!” Louis yells, and Liam immediately tackles Harry and Niall to the ground before Louis and Zayn joined him.

They stay in their dog pile for a few minutes, struggling to untangle from each other’s legs.  From Harry’s position on the ground, he manages to crawl away to the coffee table, patting down various boxes before he tosses the biggest one to Louis.

“Your birthday gift,” he says, propping himself back onto the sofa.  “Open it!”

Louis immediately stands up and tears open the gift, gasping when he sees the synthetic fur hood. “Oh Harry, it’s perfect!” Louis exclaims, holding up the parka.  “Liam, come help me put this on!”

The boys clamor to give Louis his birthday gifts, each gift leaving him squealing with delight.  Harry grabs more of his own boxes, and hands them to each of his friends, all surprised that he bought them extra gifts.

“I didn’t even get you anything, you little fucker,” Zayn whines, hitting Harry over the head with one of his Hulk Smash Hands.  “Now I have to get you something when we come back from break.”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Harry rubs the spot where Zayn hit him, “I’m happy with Niall’s gifts.”  Harry grips the medallion, smiling when he sees Niall’s face glued to the television, hypnotically playing with the Tetris console.

Harry puts his hand in his jacket pocket, running a finger over the edges of the box containing Niall’s extra gift.  He contemplates giving the necklace to Niall at this very moment, but starts having second thoughts.

_What if he doesn’t like it?  What if he says he likes it and never wears it?_

Tapping the box with his finger, Harry gathers his gifts and runs to his room, dumping them onto his work desk.  He takes the box from his jacket, holding its top half open to look at the pendant.  “After the party,” he says to himself, “then we’ll be together, maybe.”  Harry quickly closes the box when he hears Niall calling for him, and hides it under his pillow.  Niall runs into the room, tickling Harry’s sides before he sat on his bed.

“Ready to go?” he asks, bouncing in front of Harry.

“Not yet, just need to change,” Harry replies, taking off his jacket and shirt.  He kneels down and reaches under his bed for his clothing bins, searching for a new shirt to wear.

Niall holds his hand out, noticing the two swallows on Harry’s chest.  “Hey, I didn’t know you had tattoos," leaning over to take a better look.  “Can I?” he asks, and Harry nods.  Niall begins tracing the outlines of the birds, and Harry bites his lips to hold back the smile on his face.

Harry’s chest feels a little heavier, each curve Niall drew with his finger left him breathless until it trails across his collarbone.  Harry shivers a little and looks up, finding Niall staring at him with flushed cheeks.  Harry and Niall slowly lean in toward each other to where their lips were so close, but barely touched.  Harry closes his eyes, nervously waiting for Niall to finally kiss him.

_It’s finally happening, it’s finally–_

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Niall whispers.  Harry lets out a little gasp when he opens his eyes, shocked at the words that came out of Niall’s mouth.

“What the hell did you just say?” Harry says shakily under his breath.

“We need to get ready,” Niall jumps up, running to their closet.   Quickly sifting through their clothes, Niall asks, “Can I borrow this?” and holds up Harry’s maroon sweater.

Harry doesn't answer, and faces away from Niall when he stands up to put his shirt on, harshly breathing through his nose.  Niall had just rejected him, and suddenly the idea of ditching the party and going home early didn't sound bad at all.  And neither did the idea of ripping off his St. Christopher necklace and using its chain to whip Niall across the face to get back at him.

"Harry?"

"I haven't washed it since the first party," he faces Niall again, keeping a neutral tone, "wear it if you want."

Niall sniffs the sweater, shrugs, and puts it over his shirt.  “Well, how do I look?” he asks, spinning around to give Harry a full look.  The sleeves hung past his fingertips, and the hem of the sweater fit snugly around his waist.  The sweater Harry had worn so many times before was slightly bigger on Niall’s body, but if anything, it looked better on him.

“Perfect,” Harry fakes a smile, fixing his hair to hide the tears that were welling up.  “As always.”

Niall smiles hesitantly and looks through their closet again, tossing a dark purple hoodie in Harry’s direction.  “I borrow yours, you borrow mine.”

Harry looks at the hoodie as if he’d seen it before, but shakes the thought aside to put it on, noting how it fit in all the right places.  Harry reluctantly spins around for Niall to give him a good once over, acting completely unphased when Niall gives him a wolf whistle.

“We’ll be the belles of the ball!” Niall laughs.  Niall tries to drape his arm over Harry’s shoulder, but Harry quickly grabs it and pushes him away, leaving Niall stunned by his strength.  Harry stands still, his hands clenched into fists, and runs out with Niall silently following after him into the living room.

Harry sits on the sofa with his arms crossed, and Niall sits across from him, playing a few rounds of Tetris while they wait for the others to get ready.  The feeling of Niall staring at Harry was too strong, but Harry refuses to look, refuses to cave in to whatever excuse Niall was going to give him.  Niall holds out the console to Harry, as if it were a peace offering, only to take it back when Harry ignores him and looks at his phone instead.

Liam and Louis head down the stairs, beckoning Harry and Niall to get up, and immediately run out of the house hand-in-hand.  Niall turns off the tv and yells for them to wait, throwing the console to the floor when he runs off.  Harry kicks it away when he stands up, and waits by the staircase for Zayn to come out of his room.

“You all right, Harry?” Zayn asks as he walks down the stairs.

“I’m fine,” Harry fakes a smile.  “We should go, everyone else already left.”

Zayn stands in front of him, cupping his hands on either side of Harry’s face.  “You don’t look fine,” he says worriedly, and Harry tries to pry his hands away.

“Did Niall say something to you?” Harry continues to move his head away from Zayn’s grip, who refuses to let go of him when he sees Harry’s eyes welling up.  “Harry, tell me the truth!”

“Stop!  It’s not about Niall!” Harry swats Zayn’s hands from his face, quickly wiping his eyes.  “Let’s just go to the fucking party, I don’t want to talk about this.”

Zayn sighs and walks out, leaving Harry to lock up before they head out to the party.  Zayn walks ahead of Harry, occasionally looking over his shoulder to keep an eye on him.  Harry was still livid about what Niall had done, and Zayn knew better than to ask any more questions.

–

They soon reach MacDiarmid Hall, and take the elevator to its fifth floor where they are immediately greeted with plastic cups full of beer.  Zayn refuses to leave Harry’s side, and spends most of the party talking to other people, while Harry stood by in silence.  At one point, Harry notices Zayn’s sudden change in demeanor, catching him exchanging money through handshakes with other partygoers.

“Zayn, I’m just gonna go get a drink.”  Harry waits for his response, and quietly ducks into the crowd when he realizes Zayn isn’t paying attention.

Harry weaves his way through the room, looking for any remnants of hard liquor to get his mind off of Niall, or at least mask it.  A crescendo of loud cheers distracts him and he stands on his tiptoes trying to catch the action.  Harry spots Liam standing on a chair, pouring two cans of beer into a beer bong.  The crowd around him chant, “Chug! Chug! Chug!”, and cheer wildly when Louis stands up with his fists in the air, having drank everything at once.

Harry whistles loudly for his friends, and makes his way over to them when the crowd begins cheering on another competitor.  He claps Louis on the back, who stumbles over from the impact.

“Louis decided to go all out tonight,” Liam says, struggling to keep him upright, “didn’t you?”

“Liam here is an absolute _parrrty poooper_ ,” Louis slurs.  “I’m getting drunk for the both of us!” he shouts, then laughs uncontrollably.

“Will he be okay?” Harry asks concerned.

“He’ll be fine– _whoa!_ ” Liam yelps, having lost balance of Louis in his arms.  “That’s enough, Louis, let’s get you some air.  We’ll see you later, Harry.”

Harry waves at Liam and Louis when they walk away, and continues his search for a drink until Zayn pops up out of nowhere.  “Why’d you run off!?” Zayn shouts, dragging Harry by the arm and into the hallway.

“I just got _the_ best weed money can buy, and I am going to get you _so_ high.”

“Zayn, I came here to get drunk, I don’t have time for this hippie bullshit.”

“You’re cute, trying to hurt me because you’re mad,” Zayn scoffs.  “But as your friend, I am here to wipe that sad, pitiful ‘ _Why doesn’t Niall love me?_ ’ look off your face.”  Zayn leads Harry down the hallway, turning random door knobs looking for an empty room.

“Excuse you, what makes you think this is about Niall?” Harry asks offended, despite the truth.

“You made it kind of obvious earlier,” Zayn says knowingly.  “God!  All of these rooms are locked, I swear I thought they’d be open.”

“Well, have you seen Niall, then?” he asks quietly.  “He just kind of got up and left the house.”

“Last I saw he was taking shots with some guy with a thing on his neck, like a piercing I guess?  Couldn’t make out the dude’s face, but he kept touching Niall’s chest, it was really weird.”

Harry stops in his tracks and pulls on Zayn’s arm, sinking his fingernails into his skin.  “Why was he touching Niall?” Harry growls through his teeth.

“Jeez, you’re hurting me!” Zayn strains from Harry’s grip.  “Look, I mean, Niall’s drunk, okay?  And people do weird shit when they’re drunk.”

“Don’t use his drinking as an excuse, Zayn!”

“Harry, let go of me!” Zayn yells, pushing him away with his free hand.  Zayn rubs his arm, checking for any bruises.  “Fuckin’ control yourself, you nearly cut my arm open!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” Harry rubs the back of his neck, “I’m just a little–”

“Pathetic?” Zayn answers with an eye roll.  “Your little tryhard asshole attitude isn’t working either, so lock it up and smoke with me,” he says sternly, and walks past a stunned Harry to continue his quest for an empty room.

Every door knob Zayn turned left Harry with a strange feeling in his gut, unsure if it was from the lone beer he consumed earlier in the evening.  His insides tighten with every step he takes and continually looks back towards the elevators.

“Can we just go back to the party?  I don’t feel too good.”

“We won’t get caught smoking, don’t worry,” Zayn scoffs, pushing Harry towards the last door at the end of the hallway.  Harry shifts his feet, watching Zayn turn an unlocked door knob, and leads the way into an empty lit room.

Zayn grabs Harry’s arm when he enters, and holds a finger to his lips when they hear soft moans coming from inside.  Harry covers his mouth to keep from laughing and clings to Zayn’s back when they tiptoe quietly to see the debauchery that was taking place.  Zayn stops and pokes his head out from an adjacent wall, snickering when he sees the action in front of him.

Harry leans beside him to take a look, and finds two young men in bed, one of them clearly sucking the other’s cock.  Harry raises an eyebrow and keeps watching until the boy hunched over slowly lowers his body into the mattress.  A glint of light hits the back of the boy’s neck, showing a piercing that shines into Harry’s eyes.  Harry blinks for what seems to only be a millisecond when familiar tuft of blond hair appears and literally feels his heart drop to the floor.

_No, it couldn’t be.  He wouldn’t do this, anyone but him, please don’t let it be–_

“Niall?” Zayn whispers in shock.

The maroon sweater Niall borrowed from Harry was bunched up over his heaving chest, his eyes closed and mouth open from ecstasy.  Harry’s blood is boiling under his skin and everything he saw warped into slow motion.  Every breath Niall took, Harry wanted to end every single one of them, and grew weaker with every inhale and exhale that vibrated through his ears.

The boy he’d been falling for in the last few months, who helped him with his homework, and willingly slept in his bed was no longer within reach.  The only person Harry wanted to be with found pleasure from someone else, and Harry convinced himself at this very moment that he was just an unwitting pawn in Niall's mind game.  He painfully watched as Niall’s breath sped up, his back arching as he held on to the sides of the bed for leverage.

“Harry,” Zayn turns to face him, his voice shaking, “I’m so sorry.”

Harry’s eyes begin welling up with tears listening to Niall’s ragged panting, his breath matching the rhythm of Harry’s raging heartbeat.  Refusing to stay any longer, Harry pushes Zayn out of the way and makes a break for it, running out of the room and down the hallway to the elevator.  He rapidly presses the elevator button, but opts for the stairwell nearby when the elevator doesn’t come up fast enough, and narrowly avoids Zayn catching him.

Harry runs as fast he can down the stairs, swiftly dodging a group of people when he reaches the front door, and keeps running when he hears Zayn shouting for him to stop.  A million thoughts race through Harry’s mind on the way back to Decuyper House, never mind the fact that he could no longer breathe and his heart was being ripped to a million pieces.  Harry had to get away from Niall, away from everything they shared.

Harry finally reaches the house, quickly swiping his card and slamming the door in anger.  He punches the door as hard as he can until his knuckles bleed, and slumps against the adjacent wall, his body shaking as he sobbed behind his hands.  Harry begins hitting his forehead, telling himself to stop crying until a loud knock comes from the door, and immediately stands up when it turns into rapid pounding.

“Harry!  I don’t have my card, open the door!” Zayn yells from behind.  “Don’t do anything stupid!  We can talk about this!”

“There is _nothing_ to talk about!” Harry yells back.  “I told you I didn’t feel good!  I told you we should have gone back to the party, but you didn’t listen to me!”

“How was I supposed to know Niall was getting a blowjob in there!?  I just wanted to get you high!”

“Shut up!” Harry screams, slamming his fists against the door.  “Shut the fuck up!  I don’t want to hear it anymore!”

Harry runs up the stairs still in tears, leaving Zayn to try and kick the door down.  He bursts into his room and pulls out the plastic bins from under his bed, dumping everything onto the floor.  He rifles through the closet and pulls out all of his clothes, leaving only Niall’s behind.  He grabs his duffel bags at the bottom of the closet, opening them and stuffing everything he can inside.

Harry had to leave, and the longer he stayed in their room, the more he was likely to do something drastic and set Niall’s bed on fire.  Zayn was still outside, yelling around the house, but it only motivates Harry to rush his packing.  Harry needed to get the hell out and go back home as quickly as possible.

“I should have punched him when I had the fucking chance,” he says under his breath.

Harry stands up to pull the duvet off of his bed, and the box containing the compass necklace falls to the floor, its sound ringing through his ears like a gunshot.  His hand shakes when he reaches down to pick up the box, and opens the small card attached to the ribbon on top.

**_To Niall_ **  
_Think of me when you wear this and let it guide your heart to mine._  
 **_Love, Harry_ **

Harry rips the card in half and crushes the box in his hand, forcefully throwing it across the room.  The gift was completely useless now, and Harry didn’t care whether or not Niall found it.  After Harry finishes packing, he runs down the stairs with his bags, stopping when he finds Zayn climbing through one of the living room windows.

“Harry, don’t you dare leave!” he yells, but Harry ignores him and runs out of the front door.

“Where are you going, Harry?” Zayn shouts from behind, catching up to him.  “Answer me!” and Harry runs even faster towards the parking lot.

“Get away from me!  I just want to go home!”

“Harry, STOP!”

Zayn tackles Harry from behind, his body flying forward and his hands barely breaking the fall against the rough concrete.  Harry scrambles to get away, but Zayn clings to his legs, and quickly pulls himself up to restrain Harry’s arms.

“Just let me go, Zayn!” Harry sobs, “Let me fucking go, I’m not coming back!”

“Harry, I didn’t know that was going to happen, I swear I didn’t!”

“If you were really my friend then you would have listened to me,” he chokes out, “we would still be at the party right now, not having a fucking clue that Niall was playing me all along!”

“Is that what happened earlier?  Is this why you were so angry when we left?”

Harry hits the back of his head against the concrete, struggling to break free from Zayn’s grip on his arms.  “It should have been me, Zayn.   _It was supposed it to be me_ ,” he says shakily.  “I just wanted him to want me back, and he never wanted me,” Harry shakes his head, "he never wanted me back."

“Never?" Zayn tilts his head, confused.   "But I thought you guys liked each other, I don't understand?”

“I don’t know!” Harry closes his eyes.  “We were so close to kissing before we left tonight, and I somehow convinced myself we would finally be together, but then he went off saying, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t do this’ and–”

“Oh no,” Zayn cuts him off, shaking his head.  “Oh Harry, I’m so sorry he did that to you.”  Zayn lets go of Harry’s arms, helping him sit up.  Harry softly cries against Zayn’s shoulder, and all Zayn could do was hold him, knowing that anything he said to comfort Harry would be in vain.

“I have to go home,” Harry sniffles, “I’m going to freak out if I stay any longer.”

“I will cover for you, but promise you’ll call me when you get there.”

Harry nods and Zayn helps him to his feet, giving Harry a hand with his bags.  “I’ll walk you to your car, come on.”  The walk was short and quiet, and it was all Harry needed at this moment: complete utter silence.

Zayn drops Harry’s duffel bags in his trunk and Harry gets in the driver’s seat, leaving the door half open.  “You gonna be all right?” Zayn asks, leaning against the car.  Harry looks straight ahead, wondering how many times his internal organs can pop like a balloon before he’s officially dead.  And he’d much rather be that way than face Niall again.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” Zayn says, rubbing Harry’s shoulder.  “I just wanted to help you forget about Niall for a little bit, I didn’t think he would do what he did.”

“It’s not your fault,” Harry shakes his head, looking up to meet Zayn’s eyes.  “Maybe things would be easier if I’d just fallen for you instead.”

“Don’t say that,” Zayn smiles sadly, “even though I’m better looking than Niall.”  Harry laughs for the first time in several hours, and Zayn reaches for Harry’s hand, tightly gripping it before he lets go.  “Drive carefully, okay?”

Harry starts the car and Zayn closes the door when he backs away, waving at Harry when he leaves his parking spot.  Harry drives towards the exit, glancing at his rear view mirror when he catches a glimpse of Zayn running back to Decuyper House.

The memory of Harry’s first day on campus replays in his mind, specifically the moment he and Niall first met in their bedroom.  The color of Niall’s eyes seemed a lot brighter then, and Harry hits his head against the headrest, wanting to forget he ever looked into them.  A lampost across the street flickers slowly, its rhythm briefly hypnotizing Harry until it turns into a bright white, breaking Harry from its strange spell.  Harry blinks a few times before he makes a left turn on the road, driving as fast as he can all the way home.

–

Harry arrives to his quiet neighborhood in a record time of an hour and a half, compared to the usual two hours plus traffic, and parks in the empty slot in front of his house instead of the driveway.  He sits in his car and contemplates whether or not he’d like to go inside and surprise his parents at the ungodly time of two in the morning.  Instead, he gets out and opens the trunk, grabs his duvet from his duffel bag, and jumps in the back seat when he shuts the door.

He lies flat on his back and realizes he’s still wearing Niall’s hoodie, but doesn’t bother to take it off.  The temperature in his car is a little warmer than it is outside, and Harry needs all the warmth he can get.  Harry digs his hands into the pockets and feels a piece of paper brush against his dried and bloodied knuckles.  He pulls out his phone for artificial light, and opens the paper to find a copy of a document hastily written in Niall’s handwriting.

_Housing: Effective immediately!_  
 _Please transfer new student, Harry Styles, from Whitforde Hall to Decuyper House._  
 _–NH_

Harry suddenly remembers the ladies in the office on his first day, whispering about him living at the house, and tosses the paper aside.  It didn’t matter now, Harry wished Niall had never transferred him.  He wished he’d been left to go through the school year alone in Whitforde Hall.  Harry lies back down and searches through his contacts to call Zayn, who picks up after the first ring.

“Hey, are you okay?” Zayn whispers into the phone.

“Yeah, I’m fine.  I’m home now,” Harry sighs, “what did you tell the guys?”

“Niall’s not here yet, but I told Liam and Louis you had a family emergency and you had to leave.  They’re kind of upset you didn’t text them, so–”

“I know what to do,” Harry answers.  “Thanks, Zayn.”

“No sweat,” he says with a soft laugh.  “Get some sleep now, you’re going to need it.”

Harry turns off his phone and tosses it to the floor of his car, and adjusts himself into the fetal position with the duvet pulled up to his chin.  His cried out puffy eyes made it so much easier to fall asleep and forget anything happened.  And just for a few hours, it would make him forget Niall existed.

–

The sound of knocking and tapping awakens Harry several hours later, and he sits up, rubbing the back of his aching neck for relief.  There’s another knock, a little louder now, and Harry wipes away the fogged up window with his hand.  It was still too blurry to make out who had woken him up until he hears, “Harry!  Baby, is that you?” from the other side.  Harry immediately shoves the duvet off of him and gets out of the car, greeting his mom with a hug.

“Hey Mom,” he sighs, breathing in her floral scented hair.  It was a nice change from Niall’s lime soap he’d gotten used to for the last four months.

“Harry, you stud,” his dad says with a laugh, patting him on the back when they hug.

“Why were you sleeping in your car?” his mom asks, fixing his messy hair.  “You should have called to tell us you were coming home early!”

“It was a last minute thing and I got here pretty late, I didn’t want to disturb you guys.”

“Silly, you know we wouldn’t mind,” she says with a laugh, lightly pinching his cheeks.  “Come, I’ll make you some breakfast.”

“I’ll see you later tonight, Harry,” his dad waves as he walks to his car, “good to have you home!”

Harry waves back, and he joins his mom as they walk up the driveway together, finally entering the home he knows best.  He sits down at the dining room table, watching his mom fiddle with the stove before she begins frying up a huge portion scrambled eggs, bacon, and home fries.  She plates up the dish, coupled with a large glass of passion fruit juice and gasps in horror when she sets his plate down, pointing out the dried blood on his hands.  She runs to the kitchen, wetting a small towel, and then back to Harry to clean off his knuckles.

“This is absolutely horrid, what happened?” she asks, roughly digging the towel into the surface wounds, making Harry wince in pain.

“It was nothing, someone pushed me.”

“So barbaric,” she says with disappointment.  She heads back to the kitchen to wash the towel, and Harry opens and closes his hand, fascinated by how raw his knuckles looked in broad daylight.  Harry was often unaware of his strength and wonders if he could have done a lot more damage if he were rid of any self-control.

Harry picks up his fork and quietly eats his breakfast, occasionally poking at the potatoes that hid underneath the bed of eggs.  He stares out of the kitchen windows when he’s finished his food, unaware his mom was trying to get his attention until she gives him a kiss on the forehead.

“Don’t space out too much, Harry,” she says, amused.  “I’m heading for work now, you’ll be okay by yourself?”

“I'll be fine, Mom.  I’m probably just going to sleep for three days straight.”

“Then walk me to my car before you go into your coma,” she jokingly says, putting a hand to Harry’s cheek when he playfully rolls his eyes at her.

Harry sets his plate aside and walks with his mom to her car, and waves when she backs out of the driveway.  He heads to his own car to get his phone and grab all of his luggage, dragging his bags up the stairs into his bedroom, finding it looking as messy as he’d left it when he moved into the school a few months earlier.  His mattress was bare, but his mom conveniently left fresh sheets at the foot of the bed, much to his relief.

Harry unpacks most of his things and fixes his bed, then heads to his bathroom to take a quick hot shower.  He stands still for a while, breathing in the hot steam that rises above him.  Harry slowly runs his hands through his wet hair, and freezes when his fingers touch the chain hanging on his neck.  He’d completely forgotten he was still wearing Niall’s medallion and Harry fights the urge not to drive his fist into the fiberglass shower door.

After Harry steps out of the shower and dries off, he searches through his closet to find his favorite cow print pajama set that he deliberately left at home to avoid getting teased at school.  If Harry had known beforehand what the guys were like at Decuyper House, he was quite sure Zayn would probably try and steal it from him, considering Harry looked like an overgrown ten year old boy in them.

Harry grabs his phone and plugs in its charger, finding messages from Liam and Louis when the screen lights up.  He laughs as he reads them, noting the fatherly tone and superfluous letters from Liam, and the crescendo of lower case letters to capslock from Louis.  The last message shown on his phone’s preview comes from Zayn, who sent it an hour after Harry had fallen asleep.

**From: Zayn**  
 _told Niall u left after u called and he looked really sad  
he won’t come out of his room or talk to any of us_

Harry’s phone rings while he was still reading Zayn’s text, his stomach tightening when Niall’s name flashes across the screen.  Harry hesitates for a moment, his finger hovering over the “Answer” button until he taps it, and lifts the phone to his ear.

“Harry?” Niall’s voice echoes.  “Are you there?”

Harry closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, remembering he had to keep up appearances.

“Hey Niall,” he says calmly, “what’s up?”

“Zayn said you had to go home.  You, uh,” Niall clears his throat, “you didn’t say even goodbye.”

“Yeah, family emergency,” he winces covering his face, “I didn’t know I was going to leave.”

“Oh, okay,” Niall says defeatedly.  “It’s just I kind of wanted to us to have a cuddle before we went home.  You know, just...kind of sort of like what we did that one night.”

“Right,” Harry says flatly, “a cuddle.”

“Hey, I got your gift, by the way!” Niall exclaims, quickly changing the subject.  “The box it came in was crushed, but that’s okay.”

 _Oh god, not that fucking necklace._ Harry feels what he thinks was the sound of his heart exploding, and rests his head on his hand.  “D-do you like it?” he stammers with a trembling chin.

“I love it!  I’m wearing it right now, actually.”  Niall pauses for a moment, and Harry dreads their awkward silence.  “It was torn in half, but um," Niall takes a deep breath, "the note you left was really sweet.  I'm sad I didn't write anything for you.”

Now it was Harry’s turn to stay silent, unsure of what to say, and takes in the sound of Niall’s music faintly playing in the background instead.

“Funny how we both got each other necklaces,” Niall says nervously, “don’t you think?”

“Yeah, it’s... really weird,” Harry replies quietly.

“Harry, what I said last night, I didn’t–”

“Ihavetogo!” Harry quickly blurts out in a shaky voice.  Niall tries to protest, tries to keep Harry on the line, but Harry doesn't know what to do except to say, “I’ll call you back later, reallyhavetogonowbye!”

It hurt him to cut Niall off like that, but the longer he listened to his voice, the worse he felt.  Harry sits on his bed, rubbing his eyes with his hands then compulsively fixes his hair.  The medallion hanging from his neck felt hot against his chest, and he removes it, holding it in his hand before he draped it on the knob of his bedside lamp.

“I just want to forget about him,” he says, staring at the swinging pendant.  “Yet, here I am, wanting him by my side like nothing ever happened.”

–

Harry spends the next week sleeping in late and watching his favorite cooking shows while his parents worked during the day.  His mom had already set up a Christmas tree weeks before his unexpected arrival, and Harry took it as a reminder to buy gifts for his parents.

After Harry changes out of his cow print pajamas and into his regular clothes, he heads out to the mall just half an hour away, roaming around for nearly two hours looking for potential gifts.  He ultimately settles on a jewelry set for his mom and a DIY mini-zen garden kit for his dad, who recently expressed his desire to have “zen vibes” around their house.

On his way to buy lunch, Harry passes by the children’s toy store and smiles at the long display window full of stuffed toys, board games, and _oh_ –remote control helicopters.  Harry feels motionless just looking at them, remembering how easy it was for Niall to dismantle and reassemble a toy helicopter.

“Greg!  Greg, hurry up!” someone shouts nearby.  Harry’s ears immediately perk up, and he frantically looks around, realizing the voice sounds exactly like Niall.  “Come on, we gotta go!”

Harry doesn’t find the blond hair in the large crowd of people rushing around him, and he runs towards an exit between two stores, dropping his bags and angrily slamming his fists into the wall when the doors close.

“Don’t freak out– _do NOT freak out_!  He doesn’t even know you’re here,” Harry whispers, covering his face with his hands.

Harry knows the voice isn’t Niall, but he can’t stop himself from thinking Niall was there, watching his every move.  Now Harry knows why people are sadder during the happiest month of the year.  Now Harry knows why he can’t hate Niall like he should; all he could picture was Niall’s smile, and how it always made his heart skip a beat.  But he shakes the thought and straightens up, picking up his bags and takes a deep breath before he walks through the doors again.

_Niall isn’t here.  He will not ruin this holiday for me and I’ll be damned if he even tries._

–

On Christmas Eve, Harry sends a text to Louis, wishing him a happy birthday.  Louis replies almost instantly with “ _We love you, Harry!  Wish you were here!_ ” and attaches a photo of himself hugging Liam dressed in a Santa outfit.  Not a minute after Harry receives the photo, Liam sends him a message: “ _i’m the little christmas mannn hahhha! :D_ ” Harry snorts so hard he ends up coughing and laughing at the same time, and sets the photo as his phone’s wallpaper.

The Christmas tradition in Harry’s home usually meant eating a roast chicken dinner and staying up until midnight to open presents.  His dad gave him $200 and a new messenger bag, and his mom gave him new clothes and a pair of boots that he knew he’d be wearing back to school.  He still had Niall’s hoodie, unwashed and dirty from Zayn tackling him to the ground when he ran off the night of the party.  Despite what happened and his currently mixed feelings, all the clothes in the world couldn’t compare to what belonged to Niall.

Harry cleans up in the kitchen when his parents have gone to bed, quietly washing the dishes when his phone chimes in the pocket of his pajamas.  He ignores it, attempting to scrub out the dried bits of food, but his phone keeps going off, and he wipes his hands, finally checking the source of annoyance.

**From: Niall**  
 **1:30 AM**  
 _merry xmas!!  have a good one!_

**1:30 AM  
** _hope u get lots of presents! haha :D_

**1:31 AM**  
 _wearing ur necklace btw best present  
wanna cuddle where are you i want cuddles :(_

**1:32 AM**  
 _okay I’ll stop now I miss u Harry_

Harry lets out a mix between a sob and a laugh; he can feel his cheeks warming up and he covers his face as if anyone else were there to see his embarrassment.  Zayn calls him and Harry puts him on speaker, going back to scrubbing when they begin speaking.

“Niall told me he just texted you, was it bad news?”

“Hardly bad news,” Harry sighs.  “It was kind of nice, to be honest?  He wanted cuddles and I want to not deal with that.”

“Aww, I want cuddles!  Come cuddle me!”

“You swear I’d cuddle you!” Harry laughs, using the back of his soapy hands to cover his mouth.  “Come on, this is supposed to be serious!”

“ _Oh Harry, I’m Niall, step to me and let me suck your dick,_ ” Zayn teases in a seductive tone, “ _let me sleep in your bed and dryhump you all night!_ ”

“Dude, shut up, my parents might hear you!”

“All right, all right,” he says in defeat.  “Made you laugh though, didn’t I?”

“Yeah... I definitely needed that.”

“Things will look up, I promise.  It’s almost the new year anyway, it’s good to stay positive, yeah?”

“I guess,” Harry chuckles, unsure of what else to say.  “So, um, how did you know?  My thing with Niall–I mean, was it really _that_ obvious?”

“Do you have _any_ idea how annoying it was seeing you smile at each other all the time?  Infinite teeth for days, I swear," Zayn scoffs.  "But that time when it was just us three in the house?  I was really surprised when I walked into your room and found you sleeping together.  It seemed pretty serious to me, even though you said nothing was happening.”

“Yeah, but it was all for nothing,” Harry says flatly.

“I wouldn’t say ‘for nothing’,” Zayn pauses.  “Niall did a lot of things for you that he didn’t with me or Liam and Louis.  I mean, that’s got to mean _something_.”

“Like what?” Harry scoffs.  “All he did was bring me lunch.”

“You poor, misguided giant.”

“What are you talking about?  That was all he ever did!”

“Motorized paper balloons wishing you good luck?  Convincing your professors to schedule their finals early so you wouldn’t be stressed?  Unpaid study sessions?  Like, you realize anyone who is a tutor at school is supposed to get paid, right?” Zayn laughed mockingly, and Harry felt like the stupidest person in the room.

“You’re lying to me,” Harry grits his teeth, “you’re just telling me what I want to hear!”

“And you’re not listening!” Zayn yells back, the pitch of his voice sending a screech of feedback on Harry’s phone.  “There was a reason he chose you to stay in our house, and it wasn’t because you went to that school up North.”

“But... why are you telling me this?  Now, of all times?”

“I don’t know, Harry,” Zayn sighs.  “Look, I know Niall was really shitty to you the night of the party, but is one blowjob seriously going to stop you from believing that he really did have feelings for you, after all he’s done?”

“If he did have any feelings for me, he sure had a funny way of showing it,” he says annoyed.

“And you sure had a funny way of not telling each other how you really felt!” Zayn interjects, and Harry can hear him knocking something over.  “Just talk it over, _do something_ –I am begging you, Harry.  If you can’t do it for yourself, then at least do it for me or Liam and Louis.  I don’t want to lose my friends.”

“You’re not going to lose us, Zayn!”

“Then fucking do something!” he shouts.  “You know what–we’re done.  This is where the conversation ends and I begin to open my presents.  Merry Christmas and all that shit.  Good night, Harry,” and Zayn hangs up.

“Happy holidays, dick,” he says with an eye roll.  Harry finishes washing the dishes, looking up when his mom shuffles to the kitchen.

“Baby, who were you talking to?”

“It was my friend, Zayn.  Sorry if we woke you up, we were kind of loud.”

“That’s okay,” she yawns, “do you want to invite him over for New Year’s?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your father surprised me with plane tickets to Las Vegas for New Year’s, and I don’t want to leave you here all alone,” she says worriedly.  “But if you’d like, you can invite your friends over to keep you company.”

“I think I’d like that,” Harry says with a smile, “it sounds like a great idea.”

“All right,” she smiles back, walking away.  “Go on to bed when you’re done.  Good night, darling.”

“‘Night, Mom.”

Harry quickly puts away the dishes and picks up his phone to text Zayn, Liam, and Louis about the details of his parents being gone–deliberately excluding Niall.  Liam and Louis text back almost immediately (or in tandem, rather), and Zayn takes a while to get back to him, but ultimately says yes.  Harry sends them his address, and finds out the boys live close to an hour away from him.

After shutting off all the lights in the house, Harry heads to bed, and his phone buzzes with a text from Zayn that leaves him worried.

**From: Zayn**  
 _i know u want to but u can’t leave Niall out of this_  
 _Louis n Liam will ask questions if he’s not there_

**From: Harry**  
 _I’ll take care of it, just tell him the details if he asks._

Harry pulls up Niall’s messages, smiling through the twinge in his heart that it caused when he read them.  As much as it hurt to think about Niall walking away from their kiss, he had to do this for his friends.  And maybe then would Harry stop blaming himself for wanting to see Niall again.

**From: Harry**  
 _Parents will be gone for New Year’s, ask Zayn for details :)_  
 _Merry Christmas_

**From: Niall**  
 _sleepover? :D I can go!_  
 _can’t wait for cuddles hehe_

Harry was surprised at how quickly Niall responded and how happy he sounded.  He wanted to stay angry at Niall forever, but he knew he couldn’t; not tonight, anyway.  The anticipation was already building in Harry’s stomach, and he wondered if he could pull off a pokerface well enough for Niall to never notice he’d ever been interested in him.

–

Two days before New Year’s Eve, Harry’s parents leave earlier in the day than expected for their trip, giving him more than enough time to clean up around the house and arrange the guest room for the boys.  Harry was excited before, but now he was just plain nervous, mostly in fear of seeing Niall.  He lies down on his sofa and turns on the television, searching on the remote control for a show to watch when his phone chimes on the table in front of him.

**From: Zayn**  
 _just leaving now!!  will be there soon if Liam’s van doesn’t break ha :p_

**From: Harry**  
 _Drive safely!  See you soon :)_

Harry falls asleep in the middle of a cooking show, and wakes up close to an hour later to the sound of his neighbor’s lawnmower buzzing next door.  He heads to the kitchen to wash up, and rubs his stomach when it lets out a high-pitched squeal, followed by a loud growl.  His phone chimes and Harry picks it up, finding a message from Zayn saying, “ _open sesame! :)_ ” on the screen.  Harry bounces on his feet and sprints towards the front door, making out three heads in front of the blurred windows, and immediately opens it to find his friends standing at his doorstep.

“Happy New Year!” Liam and Louis exclaim, giving Harry a double hug.

“So good to see you guys again!”

“Brought some food!” Zayn exclaims, holding up two plastic bag full of take-out boxes.

“I’m so hungry I could eat a cow’s ass right now, you have no idea,” Harry steps aside to let them in, turning away to point in the direction the living room.  Harry keeps his head down when he closes the door, only for it to bounce back when a shoe lodges itself in the doorway.

“Hey, one more coming through!” a familiar voice shouts.

Harry slowly looks up, his heart beating rapidly when he lets go of the door knob.  The door pushes open, and the afternoon sun that entered the doorway radiated off the freshly cut blond hair shining in front of him.  Niall looked like an absolute angel with his natural halo of light, his wide grin beaming in front of Harry like it always did, and there it was–the compass pendant resting against his chest.

“Did you miss me?” Niall asks, excitedly hugging Harry.

Niall’s embrace left Harry motionless when he inhaled the faint but familiar lime scent, turning his breath non-existent and his vision blurry.  Harry can feel himself falling when Niall pulls away from their hug, and Liam’s voice booms through Harry’s ears when he shouts his name, watching Niall’s eyes quickly fade from an icy blue to black.

–

Harry was unsure if he was still taking his nap when he feels light taps to his face, until a hard smack to his right cheek puts him a slight lucid dream-like state.  A strong, pungent smell enters his lungs, forming a lump in his throat, and forces his eyes open when he begins gasping for air.

“Harry!  Are you okay?” Liam asks, holding Harry’s head in place.

“Say something if you can hear us,” Louis says, clinging to Liam’s shoulder.

Harry stares at them wide eyed, unable to recall why he was lying on his couch and why his friends were hovering over him.  “Can someone tell me what happened?” he asks, and everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief.

“It was his fault!” Louis shouts, frantically pointing at Niall.

“You dick!” Niall shouts back, hitting Louis over the head.  “I gave him a hug, I didn’t think he’d pass out!”

“He hasn’t eaten yet,” Zayn recalls, helping Harry sit up, “maybe it was just low blood sugar?”

“ _No_ , it was that stupid lime soap Niall always uses and Liam had to use those fart bombs to get Harry to wake up.”

“ _Smelling salts_ , Louis,” Liam rolls his eyes, “some of the athletes at school use them to stay alert.”

“I like Niall’s lime soap,” Harry interrupts, looking directly at Niall, “especially when he’s that close to me.”

_Oh fuck, did I just say that out loud?_

Niall’s eyes light up and he smiles fondly at Harry, only for the moment to be ruined by Liam and Louis badgering them with kissing noises and shouting, “Harry loves Niall, Niall loves Harry!”.  Zayn breaks up the commotion, hitting Liam and Louis over their heads with a cushion, yelling at them to go to the kitchen where they continue teasing Niall.

“Kind of ballsy of you to say that,” Zayn quietly says looking over his shoulder.

“Accident,” Harry sighs, getting up to his feet.  “Passing out was a surprise.”

“Liam tried to catch you.  Niall was quicker.”

“Wait, Niall caught me?” Harry asks in disbelief.  “Niall _actually_ caught me?”

“Is this whole Niall thing going to be a problem?” Zayn interjects, ignoring the previous question.

“I-I don’t know,” he stammers, “this is about us having a good time, I don’t want to ruin that.”

“Hey!  Everything okay, guys?” Niall asks, skipping towards Harry and Zayn.

“Yeah, just making sure Harry’s fine,” Zayn smiles, and pats Harry’s shoulder when he walks away.

“Come on,” Niall tugs Harry's arm, “we bought the most amazing Mediterranean food, you’re going to love it.”

The two head to the dining area where the others are already sitting, and Harry takes a seat at the end of the table.  Niall sits down next to Harry and he immediately stands up in a panic, switching seats with Zayn out of desperation.

“Hey, why’d you change seats?” Niall asks, looking between Harry and Zayn.

“This is _my_ chair now,” Zayn says in a threatening tone.

“Fuck you man, it was Harry’s!”

“I’ll be closer to the fridge,” Harry says quietly.

“Hey!  A little less fighting, a little more stuffing your mouths!” Louis shouts over them.

Liam begins passing the boxes of food around, and Harry catches Niall smiling at him whenever he looks in his direction.  It makes Harry feel uneasy and flattered at the same time, unsure if he wanted to leap over the table and kiss Niall or lock himself in his room until his friends went back home.

“So, Harry, what do you have planned for us today?” Liam asks, eating a small bowl of shirazi salad.

“Not sure really,” Harry shrugs, “was kinda hoping we’d wing it.”

“So basically...nothing?” Zayn says with a laugh.

“Well, I mean, there’s a New Year’s carnival, but that’s not for another two days.”

“I love carnivals!” Louis bounces in his seat.  “Oh Liam, we could eat cotton candy, win prizes, and get Niall to suck Harry’s dick on the ferris wheel!”

Harry chokes and spits out the spoonful of rice in his mouth, and Niall immediately stands up, knocking his seat over.

“What did you say, Louis!?” Niall growls.

“You heard me,” Louis scoffs.  “I detect an air of,” moving his hand in a circular motion, “ _pheromones_ , is it, Liam?”

“Uh, do not bring me into this,  Louis.  I just want to eat,” Liam says holding his hands up.

“Liam!” Louis cries, “You heard everything on the car ride here, he couldn’t stop talking about Harry!”

“Oh, so now I can’t talk about our friend that we haven’t seen in nearly two weeks?” Niall spits out defensively.

“Eat it, Niall!  All that ‘ _I miss Harry, I can’t wait to see him, he always smells like Hugo Boss, his dimples are so cute_ ’ bullshit was making you way too damn obvious.”

“Obvious!?  You talk about Liam all goddamn day, it’s _my_ turn to talk about Harry!”

“Don’t you dare bring Liam–”

“That is ENOUGH, Louis!” Liam shouts, standing up from his chair.  “Can’t you see this is distressing Harry!?”

Harry sits in his seat, hands flat and trembling on the table with his head down–he’s never heard Liam lose his cool like this, especially towards Louis.  Harry didn’t understand why Niall was suddenly so fond of him, and how Louis was catching on to Niall’s game.  He just wants to spend time with his friends, not live in fear of his feelings being exposed like this.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Louis says quietly.  “You know I can’t control my mouth sometimes.”

Harry looks up and nods at Louis, and Liam sits down, motioning for Niall to take a seat before they went back to eating.  An air of tension lingers over the five boys as they quietly ate, save for the hacking sounds coming from Zayn, who felt the need to cough after every bite.

“Seriously, can you stop that?” Niall asks annoyed.

“You better stop with that attitude problem,” Liam points at Niall with his finger, giving him a stern look.

“Why don’t we play a game of soccer!?” Harry shouts, surprising everyone.  “Look, I asked you guys to come over so we could have a good time, so why don’t we start now?”

The boys look at each other, unsure of what to say until Harry reluctantly looks at Niall, who immediately nods his head.  They quickly finish their food, and pile into the vast backyard where Harry runs to find his soccer ball in the garage.  Louis appoints himself as captain with Liam and Zayn, and deliberately pairs Harry and Niall as the opposing team.

“Louis, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Liam whispers behind Harry.  “You saw what happened in there, Harry looked like a frightened bunny.”

“It’ll be good for them, Liam!  Didn’t we do the same when we first met?  I want to know what's going on with them.”  Harry turns around, giving Liam and Louis a curious stare, but neither of them acknowledge that he'd been eavesdropping the entire time.

“Hey, are we going to play or what!?” Niall yells from the opposite side of the yard.

Zayn runs around in a circle, chasing after the soccer ball when he starts doing a series of kick-ups with his feet, and kicks the ball far enough to hit Niall in the gut.

“What the fuck, man!?” Niall shouts, gripping his stomach as he kicked the ball back.

“You suck, Niall!” Zayn taunts, holding up both of his middle fingers, “maybe you shouldn’t be doing this!” Zayn throws his head back when he laughs, then looks over his shoulder, winking at Harry.  Harry’s chest tightens from Zayn’s reverse psychology, and he looks over at Niall, whose face was pink with shame.

“Interesting,” Liam says out loud, looking between Harry and Niall.  “ _Very_ interesting.”

“Come on, let’s play!” Zayn yells, jumping up and down, “I’m getting really fuckin’ bored!”

–

After several hours of play and four boxes of delivery pizza for dinner, Harry shoos the four boys to the guest room, leaving them to decide who slept on the bed and who slept on the floor.  Harry heads back to his bedroom, changing into his sleep clothes when he hears a knock at the door.

“Harry, it’s Niall.”

Harry rests his hand on the door knob, but doesn’t open it.  “What is it?”

“Can I come inside?  I was thinking we could...do our thing.”

“I-I don’t know,” Harry stammers, pressing his forehead against the door.  “I’m not sure.”

“Harry, please?  I missed you.”

“Niall don’t–just not tonight,” he closes his eyes, feeling his heart race.  “Please.”

“Okay,” Harry hears him sigh.  “Good night, Harry.”

Harry waits, listening to Niall’s footsteps walk towards the guest room, and flings himself onto his bed.   _Yes_ , he wanted Niall to be in his bed; and _yes_ , he missed Niall too–but something about his eagerness the whole day left a bad taste in Harry's mouth.  It felt forced, and for all he knew, it could have been Niall’s attempt to patch things up between them.  But it was going to take a lot more than just niceities of sweetness from Niall to make up for the last four months of agony; Harry was going to make Niall pay for what he’d done, whether either of them liked it or not.

–

The next day, the boys decide to watch a movie late in the afternoon, and Harry deliberately sits as far away as possible from Niall in the theatre.  Harry doesn’t say anything when Niall walks past him to get to his seat, but he can hear Niall whispering with Liam to switch with him.  The last thing Harry needed from Niall were fleeting touches on an arm rest, or even worse, their hands touching from sharing a bucket of popcorn.  Before the movie starts, Liam pokes Harry in the arm and leans over, handing him a small bag of gummy bears.

“It’s from Niall,” Liam whispers in Harry’s ear.

From the corner of his eye, Harry can see Niall leaning over, biting his nails, waiting for his reaction.  “Right,” Harry stuffs the bag in jacket pocket, leaning back in his seat.  “Thanks, Niall.”

“You’re welcome!” Niall shouts in his direction, and Harry hides the smirk on his face when Zayn hits Niall over the head to be quiet when the previews start.

Liam pokes him in the arm again after the previews are done, and Harry pinches him, annoyed that he’s being distracted from the film’s opening credits.  “What now, Liam?” he whispers angrily.

“Niall wants to know why you’re not eating the candy.”

“Tell him I paid $9 for his ticket and he better watch this fucking movie!”

“Shut up!” Louis whispers, throwing popcorn at Harry and Liam.  “You’re so damn loud!”

Harry pays attention to the rest of the movie’s running time of an hour and a half, glad that he managed to never look in Niall’s direction.  It was impossible for Harry to know if Niall was staring at him, considering the darkness of the theatre, but even then, Harry could tell Niall was itching to get closer to him.

After the movie, Harry takes the boys out to his favorite Mexican restaurant, resulting in a neverending game of Harry trying to avoid Niall when they sat at their table.  It was like musical chairs, whenever Harry tried to sit in a different seat, except the only person who would play was Zayn.  Harry made the unwise decision to switch seats with Liam, accidentally unleashing Louis’s velociraptor-like wrath if he were to be separated from his better half.

Harry heads to the bathroom to wash his hands after everyone orders their food, and is surprised when Niall corners him against the sink.

“Why do you keep ignoring me?” Niall asks with his arms folded.

“I am not,” Harry denies, turning off the faucet.  “What are you talking about?”

“Why don’t you tell me, Harry?  I’ve been trying to talk to you the entire day!  I mean, it’s the fact that I have to do it in the bathroom just to get you to listen to me.”

“So are you done talking?” Harry rudely replies, drying off his hands.  “I think I’m done listening to you.”

Harry turns away, and Niall grabs his wrist before he can leave.  “Harry, stop it,” Niall says gruffly, tightening his grip.  “This isn’t you, I know you better this!”

“No!” Harry shouts, pulling his hand away.  “You don’t know anything, you never wanted to.”

Harry quickly darts out of the bathroom, and slows his pace when he gets back to the table where Zayn, Liam, and Louis were already eating their food.  Niall catches up a few seconds later, and Harry doesn’t bother to move when Niall sits across from him.  Harry eats his enchiladas and chats with Louis, struggling to keep up with his fragmented storytelling while Liam simply nodded his head.

“Then Liam tells me, ‘No, we can’t afford a puppy, Louis,’ and I say, ‘Liam, you idiot, who said you were paying for the food?’ and Liam goes–”

“Mmhmm,” Harry nods, tuning Louis out when he glances at Niall, “puppies.”

Niall quickly finished his food, and was mostly focused on his phone; his left hand rapidly texting while he drank from the cold glass of horchata he held in his right hand.  Niall shifted in his seat, his leg slightly brushing against Harry’s when he stretched out.  Harry’s body stiffens, and Niall doesn’t notice.  Except for Louis.

“Harry!” Louis shouts.  “I expect you to pay attention to me when I speak!”

“I _am_ paying attention to you!”

“Then why do you keep looking at Niall?” Louis quips, pointing directly at an oblivious Niall across the way.

“Louis, leave them alone,” Liam commands.  “You’re making a scene.”

“I am _not_ making a scene,” he growls, smacking Liam on the shoulder.  “I told you something’s going on with these two, Liam, and I’m going to prove it right now.”

“There is _nothing_ going on between us!” Harry pounds his fist on the table, and Niall shoots his head up in surprise.  “There never will be.”

Niall stares at Harry, his breath suddenly gone.  “Is that how you really feel?” he asks, his hand shaking from tightly gripping his phone.

Harry looks directly in Niall’s eyes, torn between telling him the truth and flipping the table over.  Instead, he runs out of the restaurant and to the side of the building to catch his breath.

_Get a fucking grip, Harry!  Why are you doing this to yourself, why can’t you just tell Niall?  Why are you being such a shithead!_

Harry hears the restaurant door burst open, followed by Zayn’s loud footsteps from his heavy combat boots.  Harry doesn’t move when Zayn finds him, and he doesn’t react when Zayn angrily shoves him against the wall.

“You told me this Niall thing wasn’t going to be a problem!” he shouts.

“It isn’t a problem!” Harry denies.  “Do you see me right now?” he asks, holding up a hand that’s clearly shaking, “I am doing just fine!”

“You’re doing fine acting like a dick!  What the hell are you doing saying that shit!”

"Oh, so now it's my fault for saying what I think is the truth?"

"You're a terrible liar and you fucking know you're making it worse!"

"What else am I supposed to say, Zayn!?” Harry shouts, pushing him away.  “And just in case you forgot: I wasn't the one who rejected him, Niall rejected me!  He deserves this treatment!"

“You don't want him anymore, you want to pretend you never liked him–FINE!” Zayn shouts, then calms down almost immediately.  "But you can’t keep acting like this won’t hurt either of you."

“Guys?” Liam calls, walking around the corner with Louis.  “Everything okay?”

Harry doesn’t answer and turns his heel, angrily walking away from them and to the front of the restaurant.  He stops when he finds Niall by the front door, and Harry feels breathless when Niall looks at him, clearly hurt from what transpired earlier.  Harry doesn’t know what feels worse at this very moment: the fact that he lied in front of his friends or that he intentionally acted like an asshole to Niall.

“Let’s get back to the house,” Liam says from behind, and walks ahead of him with Louis and Zayn.

The car ride back home was tense, even with Zayn sitting between Harry and Niall in Liam’s van.  As much as Harry tried to get rid of his feelings for Niall, he knew they wouldn't go away that easily.  And even if it really were that easy, he would have shut down a long time ago.

–

When they come back to Harry’s house, Zayn finds a binder full of Harry’s dvds, a collection of mostly 1980s movies, and insists on breaking the tension by watching teen comedies.  Harry sits on the floor of the guest room when he pops in his dvd of “Real Genius”, preferring to be closer to the screen, while the other four sat on the bed.

Throughout the course of the movie–in which everyone noted the similarities between Niall and Chris Knight, the protagonist–Harry felt a pair of eyes on him, watching his every move.  He knew it was Niall, and even with some of his curls blocking his view, his heart raced when he’d look in the corner of his eye, waiting for Niall to quickly turn his head and look back at the screen.

 _God, if I wasn’t such a dick earlier I’d sit next to him_ , Harry thinks, and drops his head against the bed.  Zayn tugs on Harry’s hair several minutes later, motioning with his head to look at Niall.  He leans over, and finds Niall sleeping on the maroon sweater bunched under his head.  Liam and Louis were also in the same sleeping state, their bodies literally fused as one, leaning against Zayn to keep from falling off the bed.

“That’s yours, isn’t it?” he whispers, and Harry nods.  “Just talk to him.  Please?”

Harry looks at Niall, then back at Zayn, and shakes his head.  Zayn rolls his eyes and carefully slides off the edge of the bed, making sure he doesn't disturb Liam and Louis, before he crawls onto his air mattress sitting against the wall when the end credits roll.

Harry stands up to stretch and turns off the dvd player, switching off the lights when he heads to his bedroom.  He leaves his door slightly ajar with the lights off, and claws his way through the dark to his bathroom before he turns on the lights.  The floorboards creak while he brushes his teeth and he waits a moment, assuming it’s one of the boys getting a drink downstairs, before he finishes up and crawls into bed.

Harry slides under the covers, shifting his body to sleep on his right side.  He sighs a little, his eyes slowly closing and his mind drifting when he feels a tap on his shoulder.  He feels the tap again, mistaking it for an itch, and scratches it away.  Soon he feels his arm shake, followed by a breathless whisper of his name.

“ _Harry, it’s me._ ”

The covers rise and the bed sinks a little lower, and Harry's eyes snap open when he feels a familiar, smaller body shifting behind him.  He’d forgotten the warmth of Niall, the way he adjusted himself to fit behind his larger frame, and how easily he fell asleep.  Harry stifles a whimper against his pillow when he feels Niall’s hand rest on his hip, sliding it upward towards his stomach, and softly rubs the skin under Harry’s shirt with his thumb.

A ringing hums through Harry’s ears, and he shuts his eyes, unsuccessfully drowning out the noise.  His heart rapidly beats out of his chest and he finds himself exhaling faster than he can inhale.  Niall’s nose softly brushes against the back of his neck, and he feels the muscles in his throat tighten, letting out a sob when it gives up on him.

“Niall,” his voice quivering, “please stop.”

“Harry,” Niall sits up, “you’re shaking, what’s wrong?”

“Please,” Harry says with a sniffle, “don’t do this.”

“But I thought we could–”

“Shut up!” Harry shouts, “just shut up!” and he scrambles out of bed, running towards the door to hit the lights.

“Harry, what the hell is going on with you!”

“ _Me_?  What the hell is going on with _you_!” Harry snarls, approaching Niall.  “Did you seriously think you could come to my house and act like nothing happened between us?  That I’d be okay with you sleeping in my bed when you made it clear you didn’t want me?  Are you trying to torture me by fucking with my head!?”

Harry only lashed out at Niall once and didn’t have enough courage to defend himself.  But now Harry feels stronger, more powerful, and with enough strength to tell Niall exactly how he really felt.

“Torture?" Niall says offended.  "Since when is it a fucking crime for me to miss one of my best friends!?” he shouts, climbing out of Harry’s bed.  “I missed you, Harry!  What part of that sentence don’t you understand?  I thought this is what you would want after you stopped pretending to be a dick to hurt me.”

“You bastard, you are so full of shit!” Harry spits out.

“Don’t talk to me that way!”

“What’s going on!  Why are you two yelling?” Louis shouts as he runs into the room with Liam and Zayn in tow, but Harry and Niall don’t care enough to pay attention to them.

“I will not throw you out, Niall,” Harry says gruffly, “but I don’t want you near me anymore.”

“I won’t do it, Harry.  Not until you explain why you lied earlier!”  Niall runs his hands through his hair, pacing around the room.  “How could you go off and tell Louis that nothing could ever happen between us?  Why would you say that in front of our friends– _in front of me_?”

“Because I mean nothing to you, Niall!  I never have!” Harry screams out, and Niall stares at him in shock, completely taken aback.

“The night of the party, when you fucked me over?  Zayn and I went into one of the dorms and we found you getting your dick sucked and I–” Harry swallows hard, and he can see Niall’s neck muscles tighten, realizing what he had done.  “Do you know how angry that made me?  To see you with someone else and realize that you were just using me until I lost my fucking mind?”

“Harry, I never used you and you know this!  I’ve been trying to tell you what happened was a mistake, you have to believe me!”

“How can I?” Harry growls, backing away from Niall.  “You’ve been fucking with me this entire time and I’m tired of it!  I’m tired of you acting like you wanted to be with me when I was just a big joke to you!”

“No, it’s not true!  You mean everything!”

“Then why did you do it, Niall!?” Harry sobs.  “That one week you slept in my bed, you acted like it meant something, and it felt _real_.  But then all the other nights I let you in, you were drunk out of your mind and you kept saying what we were doing didn’t mean anything!  If it meant nothing to you, then why did you hold me every night the way you did?  I am not a fucking rag doll that you can just toss aside when you're done!”

“Harry, it meant the world to me being that close to you!” Niall says wide eyed.  “Every night we were together, I did it because I wanted to wake up knowing you were the first thing I saw in the morning and the last at night.  I’ve been too scared to tell you how I really felt.  I didn’t know how to say it without you thinking what we were doing wasn’t serious.”

“ _Wasn’t serious?_ ” Harry says offended.  “Wasn’t fucking serious!?  You asshole!” he shouts, pushing Niall away.  “How serious did we have to be, Niall?  Did you think it was a fucking game the night you jumped all over me!?  Did you think that I deliberately wanted to hear you lie to me for the last four months we’ve known each other?”

“Stop lying to yourself, Harry!” Niall shouts back.  “It was never a game and I have never lied to you, _ever_!  I wouldn’t have done any of it if I didn’t feel the same about you!”

“Then why did you leave me hanging?  Why did you try to kiss me and then walk away like I’d be okay with it?” Harry asks, still in tears.  “How dare you stand there and tell me you feel the same when you literally tore my fucking heart out that night.”

“I didn’t mean to, Harry, I’m sorry!” Niall shouts, quickly wiping the tears from his eyes.  “ _You_ are the one I’ve wanted since you stepped foot in Decuyper House.  Everything I did since we met, it was _always_ for you.  No other person could make me do the things I did to make you happy.”

Niall slowly takes a step towards Harry, using his thumb to wipe away the tears on Harry’s cheeks.  “I’ve hurt you in so many ways and I am truly sorry, Harry.  I’ll apologize a million times if you ask me to, and I’ll say it twice as much whether or not you forgive me.  I made the biggest mistake walking away from you once, and I’m not leaving until I fix what I’ve broken.”

Harry shakes his head, lips trembling as he backed away from Niall.  “How could you possibly want someone like me after all that’s happened?  How can you even look me in the eye right now?”

“How could I _not_ look at you, Harry?”

Harry's too speechless to respond, too overwhelmed by the rush of Niall telling him the truth.  Flashes of their intimate moments run through Harry's mind, every time their hands touched, how they quietly slept through the night, all the times Niall made his heart flutter.  Harry turns and runs towards the door, but Liam blocks the doorway before he can get to it.

“There was no family emergency, was there?” Liam asks quietly.

“Why did you lie to us, Harry?” Louis asks.  “We’re your family, too.”

"He didn't lie.  I lied for him because of what happened," Zayn says, turning Harry around towards Niall.  "Tell him why you left."

Zayn slowly pushes Harry towards a confused Niall.  Harry keeps his head down and Niall reaches for his hand, their combined touch sending the strongest shockwaves through Harry’s body that made him shiver.

“This was why you left without saying goodbye, wasn’t it,” Niall says, searching for Harry’s eyes.  “You left because of me.”

“I’ve been so stupid and I am so sorry for the way I’ve been treating you,” Harry’s voice trembles.  “I was so angry about what happened, I couldn’t bear to know you didn’t feel the same, I just–” he takes a deep breath, finally looking back at Niall.

“I want us to start over again.”

–

Harry spent the night in his parents’ empty bedroom, wanting to avoid his own room as if a tornado had ripped right through it. Harry slept quietly for a few hours until he forced himself to get up, no thanks to the sun seeping through the blinds of the window.  The last few hours were a whirlwind of emotions, and Harry agreed with Niall that they would sleep off their screamfest in separate rooms until they were ready to speak to each other again.

Harry uses the adjoining bathroom, grabbing the bottle of mouthwash by the sink to rinse his mouth, and finishes with a splash of cool water to his face.  Standing upright, Harry catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror: disastrous bed head with slight eye bags and a face full of water droplets.  He'd looked in the mirror plenty of times, but something about his appearance seems a lot different now than it was just a few hours ago.

“Harry?  Are you in here?” a voice calls out.

Harry quickly dries off and runs out of the bathroom, finding Niall closing the door.

“Hi,” Niall strains through his morning voice.

“Hey,” Harry replies quietly, walking towards Niall.

“I was thinking we could talk,” Niall says, fidgeting with his hands.   “Just us.  And no yelling.”

Harry nods and they both sit at the foot of the bed, facing each other.  Silence hovers over them, unsure of what to say to each other or who would speak first.  Harry bites the inside of his cheek, and traces ‘H + N’ over Niall’s hand with his finger.  Niall looks up and smiles, leaning towards Harry to trace the letter ‘N’ over his heart.

“I’m sorry about last night–about the last four months, really,” Harry confesses, breaking their silence.  “I acted the way I did because I couldn’t deal with what happened.  I didn’t want to listen to you because I was still angry.”

“You had every right to be angry,” Niall adds.  “But it was my fault, too.  I had it all planned out: I would do all these things for you and you would just magically figure out that we should be together."  Niall tugs on one of Harry's curls, making him smile.  "I’m the smartest kid in school and I couldn’t even come up with a smart plan to win the boy of my dreams.”

“Aww, and here I thought you were just giving the new kid special treatment,” Harry playfully pouts.  “But I guess it was the study sessions,” he says softly.

“What was?”

“When I started liking you a lot,” he says with sheepish laugh.  “I liked that you went out of your way to help me, and I liked it when we would just talk about anything, and god! your stupid lime soap always drove me crazy, I just–” Harry shakes his head.  “You were all I could think about no matter what we doing.”

Niall grins and kisses the corners of Harry’s mouth.  “You don’t know how much I missed you when you left,” he says with his head down.  “I didn’t believe it when I came back and Zayn told me you packed your things and went home.  There was literally zero trace of you ever being there until I found your necklace.”

“God, that dumb thing,” Harry shakes his head, but smiles when Niall pulls it out from under his shirt.  “I wish I’d given this to you first,” he says, lightly touching the pendant, “I should have told you how I felt, and maybe none of this would have happened.”

“If you had told me first, I think we’d be at my house right now just sucking each other’s dicks like crazy,” Niall smirks, and Harry bursts out laughing.

Niall cups Harry’s jaw, running his thumb against Harry’s cheek.  Harry puts his hand over Niall’s, leaning into the warmth he’d missed in the last two weeks.  “I forgive you, Niall,” Harry says softly, “could you forgive me, too?”  The corner of Niall’s lip curls up, and he inches his face closer to Harry, their noses nuzzling.

“I do.  And I’m going to make it up to you,” he whispers, lightly kissing Harry’s lips, “I promise.”

“You could start by kissing me properly,” Harry smiles deviously.

“Oh, like this?” Niall kisses Harry on the lips, and Harry shakes his head.  “How about this?” Niall kisses his cheeks, and Harry shakes his head again.

“You know what I want, Niall,” Harry’s voice turns husky, “and you know I want you.” 

“Show me.”

Harry wets his lips and Niall leans into him, letting the soft flesh of their bottom lips touch before they sealed their kiss.  Harry let out a soft moan when he felt Niall’s tongue brush against his own, the slight taste of mint still lingering between them.  Harry pulls away and slowly pushes Niall onto the bed, crawling between his legs, and Niall grips the back of Harry’s head, roughly pulling him down for another kiss.

“Wait,” Niall pushes Harry back with a hand on his chest, “do you want to hear my confession?”

“Tell me while I give you a love bite,” Harry giggles, kissing his way down Niall’s jaw until he stops at the crook of his neck, and begins softly sucking at his pale skin.

“ _Oh fuck_ ,” Niall moans, arching his back and running his hands down the sides of Harry’s body.  “ _Oh god_ ,” Niall bucks his hips upwards when Harry bites him.  “Th-the night of the party?  When I was with that guy,” Niall swallows hard, “I accidentally said your name when I came.” 

Harry stops and immediately sits up, staring at Niall with wide eyes.  “You didn’t.”

“Well, it wasn’t _really_ an accident,” Niall says with a smirk, propping himself up with his elbows, “I always wanted to shout your name in bed.”

“You actually thought... of _me_ ,” Harry says quietly.  “But why?”

“I ran off with someone else to get away from you–to get away from what I’d done, but I couldn’t, Harry.  I kept imagining it was you the entire time,” Niall pauses, reaching for Harry’s hand.  “But now that we’re together, I’ll never have to do it again–not when you’re right in front of me.  You’re real and you’re all I want.”

Harry leans back down to kiss Niall, and smiles when he felt Niall’s tongue again.  “Prove it,” Harry says menacingly.  “Prove you said my name and I’ll never question you again.”

“I’ll scream your name out right now,” Niall says taking a deep breath, and loudly moans, “ _Oh, Harry!_ ”

“Niall!  You’ll wake the others!” Harry squeaks, trying to cover Niall’s mouth until he bites one of his fingers in retaliation.

“ _Deeper, Harry, deeper!_ ” Niall lies back onto the bed, gripping Harry’s shirt when he moans even louder.  “ _Oh, get that last Pringle from the can, you’re so fucking good!_ ”

“Oh, playing rough!” Harry laughs, pinning Niall’s hands on both sides of his body.  "I suppose now it's my turn to shout your name?"

"Are you asking or telling?" Niall says with a raised eyebrow.  Harry grins and Niall pushes him back to climb over his tall frame.  Niall pulls the collar of Harry’s shirt when he leans over, and leaves a trail of light kisses along Harry’s collarbone, making him writhe underneath.

"Come on, say it," Niall says with a laugh, "say my name and how much you want me."

"Niall, I– _holy shit_ ," Harry chokes when Niall's thigh rubs against his crotch.  "Don't start this again, it's so early."

"Finish it," Niall growls, rubbing his thigh even harder, "say my–"

The bedroom door opens and Zayn’s voice enters the room with a jovial, "Hey hey, good mor–OH!"

"Shit!" Harry and Niall shout in unison, scrambling to get off the bed.

"Well then!" Zayn smiles, batting his mile-long eyelashes at the two red-faced boys.  "Aren't we all _up_ ," his eyes widen looking at their obvious erections, "bright and early today?"

"It's a lovely day, Zayn," Harry replies, covering his crotch.

“Nice to see you two have made up by poontanging again,”  Zayn says with a smirk.  He approaches Harry and Niall, nestling himself between them, and draping his arms over their shoulders.  He looks at Niall first, then at Harry, and gives them both a kiss on the cheek.

"Major boner kill if you're going to fuck in your parents' bedroom, Harry," he says bluntly, and walks out of the room.

Harry and Niall wait until Zayn runs down the stairs, and Niall smooths out the fabric of his pajamas.  “My boner wasn’t that noticeable, was it?”

“I wasn’t actually looking,” Harry says with a glare.  “I was kind of busy hiding my own.”

“Well, let me see yours then,” Niall says indifferently, and pulls down the waistband of Harry’s sweatpants low enough to gape at his raging hard-on.  “Oh, _wow_!” Niall exclaims in awe.

“Jesus, Niall!” Harry grabs his hand, “you can’t just pull my pants down like that!”

The door bursts open again, this time with Liam and Louis running in and yelling, “Breakfast!  We want breakfast!”

“Shit, not again!” Harry shouts, quickly pulling up his sweats and Niall hides behind him, laughing against his shoulder blades.

“Oh my, what do we have here, gentlemen?” Louis walks towards the boys, slowly circling around them like a hawk.

“Liam, did you–”

“Yeah, Louis.”

“Are they–”

“Sure look like it.”

“Think they–”

“Nah,” Liam shakes his head, “Harry looks like a born again virgin.  He's gotten some, but not in a while.”

Harry’s eyes widen and feels himself warm up almost immediately from a full-body blush.

“Liam, look at him turning red as a tomato!” Louis exclaims, running back to Liam.

“Oh, will you just get the hell out,” Niall steps aside to shoo them away, “we were in the middle of something!”

“Temper, Niall, _temper_!” Liam tuts as they’re being pushed out of the room.  “I told you to watch that attitude prob–” and Niall slams the door in Liam’s face.

“Oh god,” Harry groans, falling face first into the bed, “I can’t get any privacy in my own house.”

Niall climbs over Harry, lying on top of him.  “I want you so bad, Harry,” he says, lightly kissing the back of Harry’s neck.  Harry purrs and reaches for Niall’s hand, sliding it in the space between the duvet and the front of his sweats.  Niall palms at Harry’s cock, making him moan into the mattress.

“I want to see you touch yourself,” Niall whispers, leaning over to kiss Harry from behind.

Niall rolls off of Harry who jumps to his feet, and drags Niall down the hall and to his bedroom.  Niall pushes him across the room when they get inside, laughing when Harry trips over his bed.  Harry quickly pushes the blankets off, and pulls his sweats halfway down his thighs when he lies back on the mattress.  Niall grabs a chair nearby and lodges it under the doorknob, keeping it shut, and walks towards an eager Harry patiently waiting for him.

“There,” Niall grins, crawling over Harry, “let’s have some fun.”

–

Niall’s voice echoes in Harry’s head, and his body temperature rises rapidly when the sound barrier is magnified by five, then ten, then twenty.  Harry tries to hold his breath, but his body rejects it, leaving him gasping for air instead.

“I’m going to put my mouth all over your veiny cock,” Niall whispers, his fingers scratching Harry’s abdomen, “and I’m going to shove it all the way down my throat until you come.”

“ _Niall, don’t,_ ” Harry pants, pumping the shaft of his cock with his hand as fast as he could, “ _don’t stop talking._ ”

“I’m going to take you to the dance room at school and fuck you so hard against the mirrors,” Niall growls with a searing lick to Harry’s neck.  “And you better be making out with yourself when I come all over your back.”

Harry arches his back, his head sinking deeper into his pillow as Niall continued whispering the most utterly obscene things he wanted to do to him.  He was losing control of his body, unconsciously digging his nails into Niall’s thigh with his free hand until his body stiffened, and cried out Niall’s name when he finally came.

Harry kept still on the bed while his muscles twitched, and struggles to breathe through his mouth with his shirt bunched up over his chest and his sweats clinging to his legs.  Niall hovered over him, ravenously licking off the streaks of come that were still warm on Harry’s stomach.  Sweat forms along the back of Harry’s neck, his body finally lithe and sensitive from post-orgasmic pleasure with every swipe he felt of Niall’s tongue.

“You gonna touch yourself for me now?” Harry asks when Niall comes up.

“In the shower,” he grins, kissing along Harry’s jawline.  Harry bites his lip and Niall climbs off of him, pulling Harry off the bed and towards his bathroom for the next round of fun and games.

–

Harry stands in his living room leaning against the staircase, waiting for the four boys to get ready for the New Year’s carnival.  He tightly clutches the medallion of St. Christopher on his neck, wearing it because it no longer felt heavy against his chest; but he hoped it could at least give him some sort of protection for tonight.  His attention is diverted when he hears Liam’s voice from above, and he watches as Liam slowly carried a koala-like Louis on his back down the stairs.

“Louis, your birthday was last week, why are you still complaining?”

“Because Zayn gave me a dollar for a gift!  Liam, you can’t even buy a condom for a dollar!”

“Christ, Louis.  Can I buy you some duct tape to put over that big mouth of yours?” Liam sighs, and stops halfway when he notices Harry.  “Hey!  When did you get down here?” he asks, continuing his snail-like trek.

“Been here a while,” Harry replies with a smile.  “We should get going, it’s nearly ten o’clock.”

Liam reaches the bottom of the stairs, and Louis jumps off, lifting the hood of his parka to give Liam a quick kiss on the lips.  They softly whisper to each other, but not loud enough for Harry to understand.  Louis walks out of the house yelling, “Just need to check the van, be back in a bit!” and Harry’s left alone with Liam.

“You know, you never told me if you and Louis were a couple.”

Liam grins, leaning against the stair railing.  “We like to keep people guessing.”

“But...why all the mystery?  Why not just tell people flat out?”

“We enjoy the thrill of confusion on people’s faces,” he replies with a smirk.  “It's just fun to mess around with people, but one thing is for sure: he is mine and I am his.”

Harry smiles, but also feels a slight twinge of envy for his friends’ confidence in each other.  Harry finally understands that Liam and Louis didn’t need to tell the world they were together, and they certainly didn’t need to hide their affection for one another.  They were happy just to be in each other's presence, to be each other's anchors.  Harry could only hope he and Niall would be the same one day, except maybe they wouldn’t be as mysterious as Liam and Louis have been with him.

“You’re wondering about yourself and Niall, aren’t you,” Liam says softly.  “Thinking about what’s going to happen next and all?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Harry says sheepishly.  “We were pretty stupid and I’m afraid of us messing it up again.”

“I’m confident that you won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Well, you and Niall are always helping each other, aren’t you?  Why not bring your relationship to the next level by continuing that support?  Niall’s always excited about learning and you always listen to him from what I can recall.”

“You surprise me, Liam,” Harry says with a grin.

“I know you think I’m always in my little ‘ _World of Louis_ ’,” Liam replies, wiggling his fingers over his head, “but I do pay attention, Harry.  When we had lunch the other day, it just kind of clicked for me that there was something beyond you and Niall hugging all the time at school.”

“Is that why you kept saying ‘interesting!’ while we were playing soccer?”

“I saw through the bullshit, I guess,” Liam laughs.  “Well, that and Zayn told me and Louis everything about you guys last night... but it’ll work out for the both of you, I promise.”

“Thanks, Liam,” Harry pulls him into a brotherly hug, “I needed that.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Liam smiles when they let go.

Louis comes back into the house, sneaking behind Liam to jump on his back again.  Zayn comes out of the guest room and quickly runs down the stairs, skipping off the last step.  Niall walks down after, and Harry straightens up, quickly adjusting his coat and slicking his hand through his hair.

Zayn opens his arms when Niall reaches the last two steps, loudly announcing, “Here he is, Harry–your virgin bride, Niall!”

“Fuck you, man!” Niall shouts, hitting Zayn over the head.  “I’m not a virgin!”

“Do you see this!?” Zayn hits back, putting Niall in a headlock, “Hostile virgin takeover!”

“All right, all right–break it up, we have to go or we’ll miss the fireworks!” Harry shouts, pulling Niall away from Zayn.

All five boys hurry out of the house, and Niall waits by the door when Harry locks it.  They pile into Liam’s van, and Harry sits in the back between Niall and an overly excited Zayn.  Liam backs his van out of the driveway, and Harry feels Niall’s hand snake up his thigh before wiggling their fingers together.  The two boys smile at each other, ready to spend the last night of the year together.

–

The drive to the carnival was a short fifteen minute ride, and Harry pays for everyone’s admission despite their protests.  The moment they set foot onto the carnival grounds, Harry’s immediately whisked away by Niall to the maze of food stands nearby.

Niall follows the scent of hickory smoke that fills the air, and stops at a barbecue stand, ordering the largest items on their menu.  Harry orders a bowl of mac and cheese from the same place, sharing it with Niall while they wait for his order.  Niall’s given three large paper boxes a few minutes later, and Harry watches in awe as Niall wolfs down a large beef rib, a double cheeseburger, a pound of potato wedges, and a large cherry slush.

“Oh man, that was so good,” Niall pats his stomach, and hics in place of a burp.  “Give me about twenty minutes before I eat again.”

“I didn’t bring you here to eat your way into the new year,” Harry jokes, pulling Niall away from the food stand.  “Come ride the carousel with me.”

“Don’t make me go on a ride that might make me sick!” Niall whines, but Harry keeps pulling him forward.  “Unless you want to ride something of mine?” he says with a goofy laugh, and pinches Harry’s ass.  “Hey!” Harry squeaks, and Niall pinches him again.

Just several feet away from the carousel, Harry finds a photobooth and takes Niall inside with him.  They sit down and Niall pushes Harry’s back against the wall, roughly kissing him.  Niall opens Harry’s coat, running a hand under Harry’s shirt, and reaches over with his free hand to close the booth’s curtains for privacy.

“Take this off,” Niall commands, trying to lift up Harry’s shirt.

“No,” Harry grips Niall’s arm, shaking his head.  “You can have me anywhere at home and at school, but not in here.”

Niall looks around the booth, surveying its size.  “You’re right,” he sighs, “you’re too tall and the ceiling’s too low for you to ride me.”

Harry lets out an amused laugh and Niall fixes him up before they insert their money to take a series of photos together.  They stick their tongues out for their first pose, then bare their teeth for the second, contort their faces for the third and fourth, and share a tender kiss for the last shot.  They exit the booth holding each other’s hands, waiting for the film to develop.  A minute later, two strips of the same photos land in a small plastic cubby, one for Harry and one for Niall.

“Look at that,” Niall says with a smile, “our first date documented.”

“Oh, is this a date?” Harry asks impressed, keeping the photos in his coat pocket for safekeeping.  “How far can I get tonight?  Second base with a hint of your dick?”

“How very dare you, Harry!  I am a pure and ethereal virgin!”

“Interesting, I could have sworn you made me give you a handjob earlier in the shower today,” Harry snickers, walking away towards the carousel with Niall following close behind.

They stand in line for the next ride, and Harry does nothing but enjoy Niall’s arms wrapped around his waist for a few minutes.  The carousel conductor opens the entrance gate when the ride stops, letting Harry and Niall run around the groups of children that passed them when they were allowed onto the platform.  Harry excitedly runs through the jungle of galloping horses, and Niall chases after him, even as the carousel began to spin.

“Harry, stop!” Niall yells, clutching his stomach.  “I think I’m going to be sick!”

Harry immediately runs back to Niall, only to be surprised when Niall unexpectedly grabs him by the waist and spins him around.

“Hah!  Tricked you,” Niall grins, backing Harry against one of the standing poles.  Harry slouches down to kiss him, but turns his head and runs through the horses again.

“Tricked you!” Harry shouts over the looping circus music, motioning with his index finger for Niall to follow him.

“Oh!  So you want to play?” Niall shouts back.

Harry weaves his way through the spinning carousel, lightly shuffling around the children that were secured by their seat belts on the horses.  He stops at a mounted seat, checking the coast for any children or parents in sight and Niall finally catches up, pushing Harry backwards to sit down.

Niall slips his knee in the open space between Harry’s legs, and feeling a little adventurous, Harry places a hand over Niall’s inner thigh, slowly inching his fingers towards his crotch.  Harry bites his lip when Niall’s knee rubs against his cock, and tightens his grip on Niall’s thigh in response until a child nearby shouts for her father, quickly making them straighten up and look presentable.

Harry scoots aside in his seat, letting Niall sit next to him.  Niall leans over and uses his hand as a cover to give Harry a love bite on his neck, disguising it as a whisper for anyone who dares to look at them.  Harry closes his eyes and sighs from the sensation of Niall’s mouth on his skin, the feeling of his flesh being sucked hard enough until it leaves a mark that would last for weeks.  Harry returns the favor, and nearly gets caught when Niall moans out loud, making a few people look in their direction.

“Didn’t your mother teach you to use your inner voice?” Harry stifles a laugh.

“Shut up, Harry,” Niall smiles, rubbing the back of his neck.  “I’ll only get louder when we get back to your place.”

Harry and Niall link their hands together, standing up when the carousel slows down, and jump off the platform when it comes to a full stop.  Harry excitedly pulls Niall towards the exit when he sees Zayn, Liam, and Louis waving at them from the crowd, but stumbles backward when Niall yelps from behind.

“Get the hell away from me!” Niall shouts, pushing someone away.

“Niall, what’s going on?” Harry asks, holding him back.

“This asshole, Felix, right here,” he spits out, pointing at a taller boy in front of them.

Harry couldn’t make out the face that was covered by most of his hair, but the glint of light that shone over his neck piercing was enough to know _exactly_ who he was.

“Look, I just wanted to talk,” Felix turns around, holding his out for Niall to shake.

“Fuck you, there is _nothing_ to talk about!” Niall angrily slaps his hand away.  "What part of 'don't ever speak to me again' did you not understand?"

“Niall, he’s not worth it, let’s just go.”

“Who are you, his babysitter?” Felix scoffs.  “No, I'm taking Niall.”

Harry immediately steps in front of Niall, guarding him with his tall stature.  “Niall’s with me, and he doesn’t want to talk to you, so turn around and walk away.”

“Ooh, big man!” Felix mockingly sings, flitting his hands to imitate a bird.

“Turn around. and walk. away.” Harry grits through his teeth.  “I will not tell you again.”

“Why don’t you step aside and let me handle this.”  Felix pushes Harry, and forcefully grabs Niall’s arm.

“Hey, get your fucking hands off him!” Harry shouts, shoving Felix away.

Felix puts up his fist to punch him, and Harry immediately grabs Felix’s jacket, pulling his body forward and headbutting him in the nose.  The crowd that began to form around them gasp, and Niall guards Harry as Felix stumbles around, cupping his face.  Felix slowly removes his hands, looking at the blood that spilled onto his palms.

“You stupid bastard!” he shouts, waddling towards Harry.  “You’re going to pay for that!”

“Don’t you fucking touch him!” Niall shouts, running past Harry to punch Felix in the face.  Harry holds Niall back from doing any more damage, and watches as Felix takes baby steps towards them with a fist raised above his head.  Niall and Harry back away from Felix, who ultimately falls to the ground unconscious.

Zayn, Liam, and Louis quickly run to Harry and Niall, dragging them away from the crowd that was beginning to grow.  “Holy shit, are you guys okay?” Zayn asks, trying to clear a path for them to exit.

“Break it up!” a gruff voice shouts over them.  “Who’s responsible for this!?”

“Let’s get the hell out of here!” Niall shouts, and the four boys make a break for it, pushing and shoving against the crowd to avoid getting thrown out.

Harry and Niall hold onto each other’s hands while they run, following behind Liam and Louis through the maze of game booths and food stands.  Halfway through their escape, they lose track of Zayn, and run to the other side of the carnival grounds where rows of picnic benches sat next to a caravan of trailers that could easily hide them from the crowd.  Harry sits on the edge of a table to catch his breath, and Liam briefly examines his head before he runs off with Louis to find Zayn.

“How’s your head?  No bruises or anything?” Niall asks, lightly touching Harry’s forehead.

“I’m fine,” Harry smiles.  “How’s your hand feeling?”

“Kind of stings a little, but it’s nothing a bag of ice can’t handle,” Niall grins, and playfully sings: _Did you ever know that you’re my hero?_

Harry laughs and leans forward, resting his forehead on Niall’s shoulder.  “That was him, wasn’t it?  The guy you were with at the party.”

Niall’s shoulders slump down, and Harry feels him nod his head as an answer.  “I had no idea he would be here, and I had no idea you looked so hot kicking someone's ass.”

Harry snickers when he sits back up, resting his hands on Niall’s waist. “You don’t think I overreacted, do you?” he winces from embarrassment, “I wasn’t going to let him take you from me without a fight.”

“If by overreacting you mean, ‘I hope Niall gets a boner watching me headbutt someone’, then no.  Absolutely not,” Niall says with a cackle.

“Real charming,” Harry snorts, “can’t wait to tell my parents how easily aroused you are.”

“So when do I get to meet them?” Niall asks, bouncing on his feet.

“Oh no,” Harry’s neck tenses when he swallows, “Niall, I was just joking–”

“Harry!  Are you embarrassed of me?”

“No!” Harry shakes his head furiously.  “It’s just my mom kind of babies me, and my dad asks really weird questions, and– _mmf_!”  Harry’s surprised by Niall’s lips crashing into his own, keeping still for a moment until his body loosened up.

Harry places his hands over the small of Niall’s back, pulling him closer and leaving light kisses along his neck.  Niall jumps a little when Harry nips the crook of his neck, but doesn’t protest fast enough when Harry kisses him on the lips.  Harry opens his hands, ready to grab two handfuls of Niall’s ass until a loud crash nearby startles them, ruining their intimate moment.  They look over to find Zayn stumbling around a fallen trash bin and putting it back in its place, while holding an extremely large stuffed plush of Stitch.

“Hey guys!” Zayn shouts, and trips over the edge of a table.

“Where the hell did you go!?” Niall shouts as Zayn gets closer.  “You disappeared while we were trying to get away from security!”

“I got distracted when I saw this little guy,” Zayn grins with his tongue slightly sticking out, and holds up his plush toy.  “Where’s Liam and Louis?” he asks, standing on his tip toes.  “And why’d you stop kissing?  Keep it going!  Oh wait, I get it, you want me to help–okay I’ll kiss you both, come here.”

Zayn closes his eyes and puckers his lips, and Harry immediately holds his arm out to stop him from getting any closer.  “Let’s not do that.”

“Are you insulting my kissing technique?  I happen to give free samples of my five-star tongue massages.”

“The only thing getting a tongue massage from you is a gum wrapper laced with speed,” Niall pointedly says, flicking Zayn’s forehead.

“That was one time, Niall, _one time_!” Zayn whines.  “I stayed up for three days, but at least I got shit done, all right?  Unlike you dummies always humping each other every time I walked into a room.”

“Hey!” Harry puts his hands on his hips, “we were just playing around!”

Liam and Louis’s heavy footsteps come running behind the three boys, and Zayn uses the arm of his plush to wave at them.  “We can only look for you for so long, Zayn,” Liam holds his chest, catching his breath.

“Wow, I really appreciate your concern,” he says sarcastically.  “Where’d you run off to?”

“We were looking for you, idiot!” Louis pokes his finger at Zayn's chest.  “The next time you run off, we’re just going to leave you on the side of the freeway to fend for yourself.”

“You're just mad that I won this Stitch plush and you didn't,” Zayn says, sticking his tongue out, and Louis lunges at him to take the toy away.

“I just noticed something," Niall whispers in Harry's ear, "you're the only one who takes Zayn seriously."

"Just because he's wired all the time doesn't mean most of what he says isn't true," Harry says pointedly.  Niall fondly smiles at him, then kisses his cheek.

The squeal of a single firework explodes into the sky, distracting the boys, and Harry looks at his watch, noting the time of 11:50 PM.  “Guys, come on!” he jumps up, pushing the boys away from the tables, “the fireworks start in ten minutes, let’s go!”

The gang to run back to the main grounds, following the groups of people that gathered around the barricade of the fireworks setup near the ferris wheel.  A digital clock flashed above the ride, and all five boys excitedly bounced around as the minutes ticked away towards midnight.

“Guys!” Harry waves his hand to grab their attention.  “I just want to say I’m glad I have you as my friends, and I’ll never forget this night!”

“Aww, Harry!” Louis shouts, and the boys form a huddle, tightly hugging each other until the crowd begins counting down from the 60 second mark.  The boys shout along with them, until Harry heard Niall shouting something else.

“I lied to you, Harry!”

“About what?”

“I didn’t choose you because you were transferring!”

“What!?” Harry shouts in disbelief.

“Your first day on campus!” Niall interjects, “I was in the adminstrative building when I saw you walk to your advisor's office, and I couldn't believe how tall and cute you looked, so I kind of sort of maybe kept an eye on you while you were in there."

“You were spying on me?” Harry asks in surprise, and tries think back to his first day.  He’s not remembering much about being in his advisor's office until it all comes back to him: tapping on the armrest of the chair, bored out of his mind, and the feeling of someone watching him from the door.

“It was you!  You were the one that shouted in the hallway when I looked up!”

“Guilty as charged!” Niall says with a grin.  “I ran off as fast as I could to change your housing information so you could stay at Decuyper House!  I know it’s creepy when you think about it, but I had a gut feeling about you, Harry.  I felt you were the missing piece between the four of us; you complete our puzzle of weirdos.”

Harry stares at Niall, speechless at everything he'd just been told.   _How could Niall have known just by looking at me?  I should have known the moment I first saw him._

The clock hits the 15 second mark, and the crowd’s countdown becomes even louder.

_15, 14, 13, 12, 11..._

“Niall, if you hadn’t done that, we’d never be together!”

_10, 9, 8, 7..._

“You won’t regret being with me, Harry–I promise!”

_6, 5, 4, 3, 2..._

“You’re the only one I want to be with!”

1.

Harry and Niall pull each other into an eager kiss, their lips pressed tightly against each other until Niall bit Harry’s lip, making him laugh.  Harry cups Niall’s face with both hands and Niall grips the lapels of Harry’s coat, resting their foreheads together as the crowd around them cheered at the fireworks exploding into the sky.

“Harry, guess what my new year’s resolution is!” 

“Is it to be the best boyfriend I’ve ever had?”

“Ah, I hope yours is to be the best roommate I’ve ever had sex with!”

Harry throws his head back cackling, and quickly kisses Niall on the cheek.  “You know me best,” he happily whispers in Niall’s ear.  “Um, also I guess I should say I like you!  A lot!  I think maybe I might love you,” Harry says with a goofy smile.

Niall gives Harry a confused look, and quickly exchanges it for a wide grin.  “I guess I could say the same, but I think I love you more, you giant mop,” he laughs, not hiding the obvious tears welling up in his eyes.  Harry excitedly hugs Niall, their embrace leaving Harry elated and safe in the knowledge that the only person he wanted was finally in his arms holding him just as tightly.

“You’re the only one I want, Harry,” Niall whispers in his ear, “it’ll always be you.”

+++++

The steering wheel of Harry’s car has never been gripped as tightly as it has now.  It’s the beginning of a new semester, and it has been a week and a half since Harry’s friends went home from the New Year’s sleepover.  Niall stayed for a few more days, insistent he meet Harry’s parents who greeted him with open arms.

“Oh, Harry, you picked a good one!” his mom sobs, hugging Niall tightly.  “And he’s got all his teeth, thank goodness.”

“ _Mom_...” Harry says embarrassed, his face turning multiple shades of red.

“Was your ex a toothless hag?” Niall cackles loudly, and Harry’s dad claps him on the shoulder.

“Niall, are you having sexual relations with Harry in your dorm room?” he asks innocently, and Niall gives him a frightened stare.  “I’m just curious, ‘cause I read a book called ‘Sexual Feng Shui in the 21st Century’ and if you do it in your–”

“Sexual rela–Dad, _please_!”  Harry’s losing his dignity while Niall wheezed with laughter behind his hands.

Every day they were apart, Harry and Niall kept in touch; texting during the day, and endless skype sessions at night that somehow always led to phone sex, per Harry’s suggestion (“I just really like it when you talk nasty, you know this already, Niall.”).

Harry stared out of the window until his phone buzzed in the passenger seat, breaking his train of thought.

**From Niall**  
 _got a surprise for u! hehe get off ur ass n come up!!_

Harry bounces in his seat, drumming the steering wheel, and immediately gets out of his car to grab his things.  Unlike his first day, his luggage is a lot lighter now–a single duffel bag easily slung on his shoulder, and light enough not to topple him over.

Harry quickly walks from the parking lot and runs up the steps of Decuyper House.  He finds Zayn sitting in his usual spot on the marble railings, this time with the large stuffed plush of Stitch in front of him, and Harry gives him a wave before Zayn jumps to his feet.

“Hey, wait a sec, Harry!” Zayn yells, running towards him.

“What’s up?”

“Remember during the Secret Santa, I said I’d give you a gift when we got back from break?”

“Zayn, you didn’t have to.”

“Yeah, well, you’re gonna love this.”  Zayn reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his phone.  “I recorded this at your house when we got back from the carnival–I always knew you had a talent for singing.”

“Singing?” Harry snorts, “I don’t sing.”

“Oh, but I think you do,” he replies with a smirk and holds up his phone to Harry’s face, pointing at an audio recording titled: _Harry and Niall duet_.  Zayn wiggles his phone, and Harry reluctantly taps the play button.

_Oh, Niall!  Oh my god, don’t stop!_

Harry can feel spikes shooting out of his body when he recognizes his moans and Niall’s groans.  “Zayn, you asshole!” he shouts, and lunges forward to snatch the phone away.  Zayn holds the phone over Harry’s head, laughing as Harry clawed at the air like a kitten attacking a floating feather.

_Fuck!  You’re so fucking tight I'm gonna come all over your face._

_Come on my face, fucking do it._

_I wanna watch you eat it you dirty bastard._

"Oh my god, you're like the male Maria Callas in this part," Zayn says, turning up the volume to hear Harry's high-pitched squeals of ecstasy.  “Your octave range is insane!”

"You dick, I hate you so much right now!" Harry shouts, pushing Zayn away.

_Yeah, oh god–rightthererightthererightthere!_

_You like that, Harry?  You want me to fuck you harder?_

Zayn mouths every word from the recording, mostly Harry’s cries, and Harry wished he could kick Zayn’s balls into oblivion.

“Memorizing my parts–you fucking pervert!” Harry stomps his feet, but Zayn simply waves him off. 

When the recording stops, Zayn puts the back of his hand to his forehead, and playfully fans himself with the other.  “That needed a sax solo, I am sweating!”  Harry crosses his arms, his face scrunched in annoyance.  “Aww, my little baby," Zayn pinches Harry's cheeks, "now is not the time to be ashamed of your vocal talents–you're a natural!”

“When I’m done unpacking, I’m gonna come back here, I’m gonna take your Stitch plush, rip its head off, and burn it to ashes!”  Harry turns his heel, holding his head obnoxiously high, and walks away from a pouting Zayn.  "He doesn't mean it, Stitch," Zayn says over his shoulder, "don't listen to the mean giant."

Harry stops at the front door, looks over his shoulder at Zayn tapping on his phone, and quickly runs back.  “You gonna send me a copy of that?” Harry asks earnestly.

“Emailed it when you walked away,” Zayn replies with a wink.

Harry claps Zayn on the shoulder and walks into the house, immediately being greeted with a strong, fruity smell in the air.  Harry spots Louis in the living room watching television, standing with his hands on his hips.

“Hey, Louis!” Harry says, slowly approaching from behind.

“Oh!  Hi Harry!” Louis turns his top half, greeting him with a wave.  “Did you need something?”

“Just wanted to say hi,” he smiles, looking around the room.  “Where’s Liam?”

“Liam, be a darling and say hello to Harry.”  Louis steps aside and reveals Liam sitting on a chair with a towel around his neck, his hair looking stringy and viscous.  Liam turns in his seat, giving Harry a wave and goes back to watching tv.

“Ew, what have you done to Liam’s hair?” Harry asks disgusted.

“Whaddya mean, ‘ew’!?” Louis shrieks, frightening Harry.  “Liam here is going from a boring brunette to a sunkissed sandy blond in a few minutes.”

“What’s wrong with the hair color he had before?”

“Nothing,” Liam says out loud, turning around again.  “Louis thinks I’ll look better as a blond–I think he just wants me to look more like Niall.”

“Now, Liam!  That is an outright lie!”

“Oh, for god’s sake, Louis, you’ve been talking nonstop about Harry and Niall since we got home!”

“How dare you make these false accusations, Liam!”

“You know what, Louis?  Forget this.”  Liam stands up from his chair, and throws the towel to the ground.  “I’m washing this crap off, you never do what I want!”

“Liam, don’t you dare!” Louis shouts, running after Liam into the kitchen.  “I do everything you ask, don't I?  I bring you food when you ask, I suck your dick when you want, and what about when we had sex in the photo booth at the carnival?  Do you want me to tell your mother about that?”

“Stop using my mother as a threat, Louis!  She still thinks we're virgins!”

Harry peeks into the kitchen where the sound of the sink runs loudly, spotting Liam and Louis struggling against each other with the spray hose until Liam swiftly lifts Louis onto the kitchen counter, roughly kissing him until Louis stops flailing.  Harry giggles when Louis slumps his body forward into Liam, lightly rubbing the small of Liam's back with his hand as an apology.  Louis looks over Liam's shoulder at Harry, then points a finger towards the ceiling, implying Niall is waiting for him.

Harry quietly backs away and sprints up the stairs towards his room, smiling when he spots the Irish flag still hanging over the door.  He slowly turns the door knob, taking a peek inside and dropping his bag when he entered.  The room was still slightly the same, but also slightly different when Harry realized his bed was pushed next to Niall’s against the wall.

What used to be Harry’s side of the room is completely empty now–save for the work desks next to each other.  Harry hadn’t bothered to put up anything on the walls when he moved in; he didn’t think it was that big of a deal unlike Niall’s side of the room, which still has all of his posters, except for the new corkboard hanging on the wall above their beds.

Harry walks toward it, grinning when he sees the photo strip of himself and Niall the night of the carnival.  A folded note with his name scrawled over it is tacked next to the photo, and he removes it, reading aloud:

_SURPRISE!  Thanks to your dad, I sexually feng shui’d the room for the 21st century!_

“Oh god, now Dad’s going to be in this room every time I give Niall a hand job,” Harry covers his face, embarrassed.

“Hiya, Harry.”

Harry’s heart flutters at the familiar voice, and he slowly turns around with a grin, knowing exactly who it came from.

“You gonna stand there or you gonna say something?” Niall asks crossing arms, holding back a smile.

“Sorry,” Harry bats his eyes, “how do you know my name?”

“I’m Niall, your roommate!”

“You’re mistaken, Niall’s no longer my room– _oof!_ ” Harry’s cut off by the weight of Niall jumping on him, landing backwards on the bed.  Niall’s lips quickly meet Harry’s, the two giggling into each other’s mouths as they kissed.

“Like what I did with the room?” Niall asks, shifting his crotch to rub against Harry.

“ _Oh fuck_ ,” Harry groans.  “Do you come to this school?”

“Harry, what kind of ques–”

“‘Cause I’m about to come right now.”

Niall cackles against Harry’s chest, shaking his head in embarrassment.  Harry rolls him over, positioning himself between Niall’s legs that wrapped around his waist.

“So, you ready for this semester?” Niall asks, playing with one of Harry’s curls.

Niall asked him this question the first day they met, and Harry answered with uncertainty.  But this time, Harry knows it’s going to be different–he knows it’s going to _better_.  This time, Harry knows he won’t make the same mistakes twice, not when he has Niall by his side.

“With you, Niall?” Harry smiles, giving him a quick peck on the lips, “I’m ready for anything.”


End file.
